Edge of the Shadows
by helpmethinkofausername
Summary: There's an unknown threat, and all Alex knows is that Scorpia is involved. When they start targeting people at Alex's school, Blunt comes up with a plan. Unfortunately, Alex doesn't appreciate it. Neither do the SAS soldiers at Brecon Beacons. When things get personal, Alex has to choose: go after Scorpia himself or sit quietly? If he trusted MI6, this choice would be much easier.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: Okay guys, here's the deal. I'm back...with a slightly new story. I read through my plot notes for this story and to be honest, it didn't make sense. So, I took a break and made up a plot that was a little different, and rewrote the chapters. I'm reposting them now. If you read the old version, you'll recognize a couple of scenes, but I changed a fair bit so you might want to read the stuff you don't recognize. If you're new, then welcome! This _is_ an Alex-goes-to-Brecon-Beacons story, but hopefully there's some new material in here. That's the goal, anyway. **

**Reviews are gold. They make this story much, much better.**

* * *

><p>The boy biked furiously, legs churning as he zipped through the London side streets he knew like the back of his hand. He was about to be late, and while a tardy was hardly something to be worried about - not with the impressive list of other absences - the boy did not want to draw any extra attention onto himself.<p>

The boy wasted a second thinking incredulously at himself that he could hardly garner any _more_ attention, before he refocused on the task at hand.

He swerved violently into the school bike cages and locked up his bike with a few short motions. Within seconds of arriving, he began sprinting towards his first class - Chemistry - ignoring the smirks and laughter that inevitably accompanied a late student.

"Spent too long shooting last night?" One called out to the boy as he passed. The boy rolled his eyes and ignored the snide comment. Although most of the teasing had died down, there was still the odd kid who enjoyed making fun of him. The accusations were baseless, anyway. He had never approached drugs in his life, unless delivering a drug dealer's barge to the police's front door counted.

The boy opened the door just as the bell rang. The teacher, a kindly woman who had always had a soft spot for this mysterious boy, smiled at him. "Come in, Alex," she said. "I won't count the tardy - this time."

Alex Rider smiled charmingly at the woman and slid into his seat. "Thank you, ma'am," he said quietly. He took out his supplies and prepared to listen. It had been two days since he'd returned from his latest mission, and he was far, far behind. Luckily for him, he had picked up a few chemistry tricks - mostly related to the creation of explosives - so Chemistry was one of the classes he was not failing.

The other schoolchildren snickered to themselves and shot him curious looks. Alex ignored them all. His fist tightened under his desk as one girl made a comment to her friend that he looked like he'd got into a bar fight last night and lost. _Yes_, Alex thought sardonically, _the kind of bar fight where I am fighting for my life._

He knew his appearance bothered them. Once upon a time, Alex had been considered attractive by his peers. Lately, his refusal to wear anything but long sleeves and jeans, and the ever-present scars and bruises on his hands and face, had labeled him as many things - druggie, alcoholic, gang member - but not attractive. It would have bothered him if Alex had been in any position to care. Currently, he was more interested in making sure he stayed alive another year.

Alex, who had barely gotten a second of sleep last night, spent a second closing his eyes and breathing deeply. He knew he looked a bit ridiculous, but he centered himself. When he opened his eyes, the sixteen year old's eyes were hard and his face impassive. He wouldn't let his peers get to him.

Chemistry passed without incident. Alex had gotten the one question his teacher has asked him right, and she'd smiled approvingly at him. Though he was beyond receiving pleasure at his teacher's approval, Alex couldn't help but concede that knowing at least one person at the school was on his side helped a bit.

The bell rang and he closed his notes, shouldering his bag. On the way to English, he bumped into practically the only person whom he still spoke to: Tom.

"You look like shit," Tom commented cheerfully. Of course, Tom had a sneaking suspicion where his friend had gotten the bruises from, but Alex had never told him in excruciating detail what happened at these missions. "I've heard you were in a bar fight after a bad trip." His easy grin let Alex know he was kidding.

"Long night," Alex muttered. Tom didn't know about his nightmares, and Alex intended to keep it that way. He would have preferred it if Jack didn't have to be awakened night after night to hear him stumble to the bathroom and throw up, body in a cold sweat, but there wasn't much he could do about that.

Tom winced sympathetically. "I suppose that means you aren't going to football practice today, then?"

Alex did a mental inventory of his body. As much as he wanted to slip into his cleats and get on the field, he knew that he needed at least a week of healing. "Maybe next week," he said, his face not betraying his disappointment. Tom waited for an explanation with a raised eyebrow, and Alex elaborated: "My knee hurts a bit."

Yes, his knee hurt, but his back was a mass of bruises and his chest injury had been hurting like a _bitch _lately. The two walked into their next class, taking seats next to each other. For Alex, English was usually a relaxing period, as he doubted he would have to to decipher Shakespeare in order to stay alive. He knew that his other classes were important - even history - but English, not so much. Alex had never been much of a writer, even though he used to read quite a bit.

He still read occasionally nowadays, but Alex ignored the fact that much of his reading material consisted of reports from MI6.

"Rider," his teacher barked. Tall, hostile, and entirely too unhappy with his own life, Mr. Verner had never been a fan of Alex. "Why isn't your book out? Page 96."

Alex resisted a snappy comment and smoothed out his face, flipping to the right page. He amended his previous thought: he usually could relax in Engish, unless Mr. Verner decided to be a right bastard and build up his self confidence by picking on a teenager. Unfortunately, this happened far too often. Today, they were reading _The Great Gatsby_, and Alex's knowledge of it was spotty, at best. He'd never read a page of the book. It figured that Mr. Verner would target Alex on the one day he wasn't ready to participate.

Mr. Verner undoubtedly knew Alex was behind, but he picked on Alex the entire lesson: "Rider, what does that quote mean?" "Rider, get your nose out of your notes and pay attention." "Rider, didn't you do your reading? Even children can interpret this better than you."

Alex breathed through his nose and answered in clipped sentences. Tom shifted uneasily next to Alex, recognizing that look that was creeping into his eyes. It was the look that Tom imagined Alex wore on missions. It was the look that meant Alex could kill Mr. Verner in five seconds flat and was well aware of that fact.

"Easy," Tom muttered, laying his hand on Alex's shoulder. The blond flinched his hand off, and Tom bit his lip. Alex's muscles were tensed, and he was practically radiating tension.

"Rider," Mr. Verner said again, glaring at his student. "Tell the class what your interpretation of the quote on the board is."

Alex looked at the board. "I hope she'll be a fool—that's the best thing a girl can be in this world," he read out, "a beautiful little fool."

Shit.

Alex didn't know who said the quote. He didn't even know who the quote was referring to. Hell, he didn't know the names of the main characters. Give him a week and he would have read the book and understood it, but at the moment, he didn't have a clue.

Luckily for Alex, the bell rung at that moment.

He was the first out the door.

* * *

><p>At lunch, Alex sat alone. Tom had offered to keep him company, but Alex had waved him away. He had homework to do. He also had to get himself centered after the morning classes. Alex didn't give a shit about what Mr. Verner thought of him, but as he'd been sitting in class, he couldn't help but wonder why he was back at school. He longed to fit in, to be normal, but he knew that 'normal' would never be an adjective assigned to Alex Rider, never again. Why was he putting up with this?<p>

_So that MI6 doesn't win,_ he reminded himself. Going to school gave him a semblance of control.

Alex sighed and took a bite out of his sandwich. He _hated_ maths. Yes, many of his classmates (the smarter ones, at least) might grow up to be in a profession where higher level maths was necessary. As a spy, a fair amount of math and science was necessary, but Alex firmly believed he wouldn't have to waste his time thinking about similar triangles and the equation of a circle.

Still, he soldiered on. Hopefully MI6 would give him a break, and Alex fully intended to stop being a spy when he turned of legal age to refuse. Maybe he would need the knowledge if he ever wanted a chance at a real job that didn't involve almost _dying_ every other second. Maybe a nice desk job. Management. Investing. Accounting.

Alex pictured that future for a second and reflexively shuddered.

Maybe he would just stick with something like professional parasailing. Something dangerous enough to keep his life interesting, but nothing that involved bullet wounds or crazed psychopaths.

* * *

><p>Ironically, he was sitting in maths when the attack occurred.<p>

Alex had been dozing off, staring out of the window, when gunshots echoed through the hallways. Instantly alert, Alex assessed the situation while the rest of his class panicked. "Settle down, settle down!" Mrs. Naler, his teacher, shrieked loudly. "Remember our Code Red drills!"

Code Red? Alex tried to remember which drill that was. It came to him a second later, and he mentally cursed. It involved the class barricading the door with the desks in order to stop an armed intruder. He mentally warred with himself as the class tried to figure out what to do. He could step up and stop the intruders, thereby outing himself forever. Or, he could do the logical thing and alert MI6...

He pulled out his phone and sent a quick message to the emergency number he had long since memorized. He would not do anything stupid, dammit!

The boy next to him gave him a dirty look. "How can you _text_, Rider? We're all going to die!"

"Firstly, we're not all going to die," Alex snapped back, "And secondly, I was telling my guardian to tell the police." A little white lie, but that was fine. Now, all he had to do was keep quiet and hopefully MI6 or the local police would rescue them soon. He hadn't heard anymore gunshots, only yells and the sounds of feet running.

A thought struck Alex suddenly. If - and it was a pretty likely if - the intruders were after him, he should try to blend in more. Alex wrinkled his nose in distaste and picked up a hat off the floor. It belonged to Jeremy Staffon, a jock who wore the hat every single day. Alex didn't want to _think_ about the last time it had been washed, but he pulled it firmly over his face in order to hide both his tell-tale blond hair and part of his face.

Jeremy noticed and was about to take it back, when the teacher regained control of her classroom. "Quiet, all of you!" She snapped authoritatively. "I don't want to hear a single word! We are going to _be absolutely silent_. Anybody that makes any type of noise - heaven, even a _sneeze_ - will be given one of my pop quizzes sometime this week, understand? And it will count for ten percent of your grade!"

The din silenced instantly. Mrs. Naler's pop quizzes were legendary. According to the rumors, the highest score anybody had ever received was a 22%, and he had gone on scholarship to Cambridge.

Alex crossed his fingers that nothing was going to go wrong. MI6 had sent back a message - _yes, approaching _- and he could only hope the threat would be nullified without anything too bad happening.

This changed a second later when a voice called his name over the loudspeaker.

_Fuck. Why do these things always happen to me?_

"We need Alex Rider," the voice said menacingly. "Send him out and nobody gets hurt."

All eyes swung to Alex. He held up his hands. "What, you actually believe that guy? What is this, a bad spy film?"

"Mr. Rider!" Mrs. Naler said, looking at him with worry. "What on Earth - "

"Druggie's got himself into trouble," sneered Jeremy, shaking his head in disgust. "What did you do, Rider? Kill somebody for a fag or two?"

Mrs. Naler turned her glare on him, but it was too late. Voices broke out in the classroom, each one loudly speculating as to why Alex was needed. Alex was willing to bet that similar discussions were happening in every classroom. Shit, he needed a way to explain this. Alex was certain, however, that he did not intend to go outside. _Yes, approaching_ meant that MI6 was seven minutes away, and it surely had passed that time. He was not going to do something stupid and get himself outed to everyone.

Sitting in the auditorium half an hour later, Alex mentally patted himself on the back. Although it had taken every one of his instincts _not_ to rush out and take down the intruders, he had resisted - and MI6 had interfered without anybody getting hurt. That had to be a first.

The kids were looking at him with curiosity, and Alex rehearsed the story he had come up with while trapped with his maths class. They all thought he was a druggie anyway, so he would just say a friend of his pissed off the wrong people, and there you go. Any teenager who has seen a film would understand that. No need for elaborate lies.

The auditorium was humming with excited energy, and Alex was willing to bet all of their Facebook statuses would have to do with this tonight, unless MI6 got their way. He caught Tom's eye from across the hall - they were sitting by class - and smiled slightly at him to convey that everything was alright.

Tom grinned back. He evidently found this very amusing.

A hush fell over the auditorium as Mrs. Jones, looking the exact same as always in her suit, ascended the stage. Without preamble, she began to speak. "My name is Mrs. Phillips, and I work for MI5," she said matter-of-factly. Alex raised an eyebrow. He hadn't known she was such a good liar, but he supposed it came in the job description. He grinned slightly to himself, imagining a job interview. Mr. Blunt may say something like, _"I would like you to describe seven ways to kill a man without a weapon, and make up an entirely different past without blinking. Oh, and you have to promise you have no qualms doing something illegal for the country's own good."_

Alex had to restrain himself from giggling as Mrs. Jones went on. "Today, there was an attempt on your school by three armed men. While they were undoubtedly dangerous, they were not trained and were quickly overwhelmed. Nobody was hurt."

"What about Rider?" A boy called out. Alex searched for the speaker, but found none.

Mrs. Jones' face was impassive. "I will let him explain. Mr. Rider?"

_Clever, using my last name so that people don't think we're connected_. Alex slowly got up to walk to the stage. Everybody's eyes were on him, which was nothing new but unsettling nonetheless. Once he was up there, he cleared his throat and began to recite the lie he had come up with earlier. "I'm sorry, but a friend of mine kind of got in the way of another bloke, if you get what I mean, and he didn't appreciate the interruption."

Mrs. Jones gave him a confused look, as did most of the teachers, but the teenagers were nodding amongst themselves. This made perfect sense. He gave Mrs. Jones a look, trying to convey that she should let it go, and she nodded imperceptibly.

Mrs. Jones took back the microphone. "We have taken steps to secure the school. Classes have been dismissed for the rest of the day. You may leave."

Somehow, Alex knew that she wasn't talking to him.

As the school filed away, still shooting him curious looks - he knew he'd get hell tomorrow, but a different type of hell than he'd gotten used to - Mrs. Jones nodded her head to to side. "There's a car waiting," she said. "Let's talk."

* * *

><p>Alex had always hated Mr. Blunt's office, and today his opinion was no different. Usually, Alex entertained himself by mentally criticizing everything from the bland walls to the questionable stain on the carpet, but today Blunt and Mrs. Jones were looking more worried than he had ever seen.<p>

"It was Scorpia, wasn't it?" Alex asked as soon as the door was closed.

"Astute as always, Alex," Blunt said. "A useful quality for a spy."

Alex didn't react. He only looked at Mrs. Jones, his glare saying quite firmly that he wasn't going to put up with any bullshit.

Mrs. Jones sighed. "We don't know," she admitted, even though Blunt glared at her for it. "They were too sloppy to be Scorpia directly, but one of the men matched a description of somebody associated with Scorpia, to some extent."

Alex frowned. "Yeah, but what if they were pretending to be sloppy so that you'd relax your security?"

"Or to leave something behind," Blunt interjects, his face serious. "My theory, Alex, is that the goal was not to kill you. Perhaps to make you reveal your occupation to your classmates, but not to kill you."

"That's reassuring," Alex said sarcastically. "What do you think they might have left behind?"

Blunt shrugged. "A listening device, a camera, we aren't sure. It's not a bomb, as we did a check for that. It has to be small enough to escape our notice."

Alex nodded slowly. Okay. He could deal with that. He was glad that MI6 was finally informing him of everything, instead of forcing him to deal with things as they hit him. "Anything else?"

Mrs. Jones tried to smile at him warmly, but the expression didn't suit her face and the effect was overall more scary than sweet. "We want you to keep an eye out for the object," she said, "nothing dangerous."

Alex didn't buy that, but he didn't question it for now. He had been planning to look out for the object anyway, so he could agree to that small mission. "Is that it?"

"Do not reveal yourself for any reason," Blunt said, voice harsh. "We will have agents within a one mile radius, so all you have to do is send a message to the number you accessed today. Understand?"

This all seemed deceptively straightforward to Alex, who nodded slowly. "What are you going to do about Scorpia?"

"Our sources are looking into it," Blunt said impassively. "I do believe Mrs. Starbright is expecting you for supper."

Thrown by the apparent non-sequitur, Alex stood up. "Er, okay," he said uneasily. Something about this didn't sit right with him, but he didn't want to spend any more time in Blunt's office. He would think it all through later.

And, he didn't want to be late for Jack's supper.

* * *

><p>The next couple of days were pure hell.<p>

Alex was both simultaneously shunned and the #1 subject of gossip, something that could only happen in a school. He had left his story intentionally vague on purpose, but these stupid children were having the times of their lives inventing reasons for the intrusion. Apparently, people were currently believing that Alex was a killer. True, yes, but not a truth that would ever be known to his peers.

Alex sat completely alone at a circular table tucked away into the side of the caf. This was so that he could survey the rest of the tables for danger signs and - oh, who was he kidding. It was because nobody wanted to sit near him. Tom had offered, but Alex had told him no. There was no point in both of them getting rejected.

He sighed internally and turned to his lunch, ignoring the looks he kept receiving. His doctor had put him on a high-protein diet, which Alex took as a bad sign. If he was going to stay in England, why would he need a new diet?

He was about to take a bite when the windows shattered.

Not. Again.

Alex ducked and crawled under his table, copying the rest of the students as a masked man, clad entirely in black, jumped through the broken window and looked around. Alex expected his name to be called, but the man didn't say anything. He looked around at all of the scared faces peeking out from under the tables, passing Alex's without any hint of recognition. Could it be that they were not here for him this time? This only made him uneasy.

The eyes stopped on a boy named Jacob Crafford, a striker on the football team. He had used to be good friends with Alex, back before everything happened. "Get out," the man ordered, his voice harsh.

Jacob didn't do a thing. "It's not me you want, it's him!" He pointed to Alex. "That's Rider, take him away instead!"

Alex, disgusted at his classmate's cowardly move, crawled slightly out of the table. If he got taken away, maybe he could find out more about the attacks...

But the man laughed derisively. "Rider? Why would we want some kid named Rider?" He cocked his gun and pointed it straight at Jacob. By this time, Alex was standing and tensing to take him down. Dammit, where was MI6? He had sent the distress signal when the windows first exploded, they should be here by now!

"Don't shoot me, please, I don't want to die!" Jacob begged pathetically, cringing in fear. Alex supposed he couldn't technically blame his classmate for being a Grade A wimp, but it was still annoying as hell. Where was MI6? The man took careful aim at Jacob and Alex swore.

"What do you want with him?" Alex called out, distracting him.

The man slowly turned. "You'll see soon enough."

Before Alex could figure out what that meant, a crash came through the door and an MI6 agent shot just once. Instead of hitting the man, he hit the gun, which flew out of the man's grasp.

Surprisingly, the man just smiled and held out his hands for arrest. Alex narrowed his eyes as he watched the MI6 agent take the man away. Why would somebody target Jacob, and then give up? Why hadn't he shot the boy when he had the chance? What did 'you'll see soon enough' even _mean_?

* * *

><p>One month later, and Alex was again sitting in Blunt's office.<p>

If he had thought their faces were worried before, Mrs. Jones and Blunt looked downright scared today. In the past weeks, there had been four total attacks, not counting the original one where they had called for him over the intercom system. Four children had almost died, and although nobody had made the connection yet, Alex knew they all had some sort of relation with him.

The last one had been Tom.

"This situation is growing dire," Blunt said, clasping his hands in front of his desk. "I trust you understand why you have been called in?"

Alex shrugged carefully, not wanting to commit to anything. "Something has to be done about the attacks," he said, playing it safe.

Mrs. Jones nodded. "That is for sure," she said, sliding a newspaper over to Alex. "Already, the papers are speculating what, exactly, is happening at your school."

Alex read the headline - _Armed Attacks at Brookland! Parents Panic!_ - and shuddered. Just what he needed: reporters poking their noses into his school. He was sure that they would uncover records about his many absences and latch onto that.

"What do you want me to do?" Alex said absent-mindedly, reading the first few paragraphs of the article. "Send a few agents in, arm the school. Nobody will question it."

"We want you to disappear."

Alex would have choked if he hadn't been a professional spy. He raised his head slowly and stared incredulously at Blunt. "Disappear? _Disappear_? Do you have any idea how much _worse_ that would make things - "

"We will escort you and an agent to a safe house, where you will remain until the threat is nullified," Blunt said, managing to completely overpower Alex's protests without seeming to even raise his voice.

Alex gaped. Was Blunt absolutely around the bend? Disappearing wouldn't solve jack shit. Scorpia wouldn't be deterred, the school would gossip like crazy, and he did not want to leave Jack to stay with some random agent! "That is the worst idea you have - "

"You will not be able to remain at school if you want to keep your cover," Mrs. Jones cut in, but Alex ignored her.

He couldn't leave school, not again. It would be the last straw for him. He wouldn't be able to pass any of his exams, and knowing his luck, a Scorpia operative would find the safe house and beat him almost to death anyway. It could take months before Alex was allowed to return to school. Pulling him out wouldn't stop Scorpia anyway, he thought mutinously. They had made it quite clear that they weren't trying to target him. They would hurt his friends whether or not he was there to protect them. "How are you going to find the object, without me?" Alex demanded. He had spent hours looking for the damned thing, but without any leads to go on, he hadn't found anything.

Blunt gave a meaningless smile. "Our agents can complete that task just as well as you, Alex."

Alex silently fumed. He couldn't leave Brookland now! With all of the attacks, people were gossiping about other things. They were talking about Jacob and Tom and Cheryl and Jordan, the others that had been targeted. Yes, they were talking about him, but to a much lesser degree. He was getting his grades up. Dammit, he was beginning to fit in again!

"No." Alex said harshly, making up his mind. If he was stuck in a safe house with an agent, who's to say that Blunt could just as easily send him on a mission to keep him out of the country for a bit? He was not a fan of that idea, at all.

Blunt steepled his fingers. "There is another solution," he said, the idea appearing to dawn on him. Alex raised an eyebrow. Blunt continued, "We can send your class away, remove them from the attacks. We believe that it is only those in your form that are being targeted."

Alex liked this idea far more, so he nodded slightly. He wouldn't be the center of gossip then, not if everybody was asked to leave. "Yes, separate us," he said, thinking ahead. "Put us in safe houses, each with a unit to guard us while you lot track down Scorpia."

This could work. They would have to protect the families, after all, so Jack could come with him too.

Mrs. Jones shook her head. "That would never work, Alex."

"We hardly have the manpower," continued Blunt. "Unless we sent all of you to a place where there are enough soldiers to fully keep track of every student. We could spare a few agents to watch their parents at home."

Alex narrowed his eyes. This did not sound promising. What did Blunt mean by 'soldiers'? MI6 referred to their people as 'agents.' They couldn't possibly mean -

"I'm sure your class would love a field trip to Wales," Mrs. Jones said brightly, and Alex let out a groan.

His class, sent to Brecon Beacons? This was impossible. His classmates were immature teenagers, concerned with trivial matters like clothes and music and each other. They screamed at spiders and cried at paper cuts. They wouldn't last one day at the SAS training. "Nevermind," he said desperately, back-pedaling. "I'll be happy to disappear, just let me get my bag - "

Blunt's voice was innocent, as innocent as the head of MI6 could ever appear. "Oh, no, Alex. I find that I am growing fond of this idea. It is the perfect solution, and it will give your classmates a chance to explore life in the army. Who knows, perhaps we will find somebody with enough talent to recruit when they are older?"

Alex spluttered slightly, realizing too late that going to Brecon Beacons had been Blunt's intent the entire time. Damn him, for setting up a trap, and damn Alex himself for not releasing it! He was a _spy_! He should be able to see these things coming!

"You cannot be serious."

Mrs. Jones took over. "Completely serious," she said. "Alex, your classmates are in danger. This is the only way to protect them."

Alex snorted derisively. "That, Mrs. Jones," he said coolly, "is a blatant lie."

Blunt's voice was sharp. "Do not ridicule your leaders," he chastised, as if Alex was a boy. Affronted, Alex was about to respond, but Blunt's next statement stopped him. "Scorpia has a new head."

Alex sat back in his chair. He had not been expecting that. "A new leader? What - who is it?"

Mrs. Jones clicked a small remote, turning on the overhead projector. A picture of a man popped up, a man that, quite honestly, looked utterly normal. He had short brown hair and brown eyes, average height, tanned skin, and casually dressed. He looked like the type of man you could run into anywhere, from grocery shopping to eating out to meeting at a club. He didn't look _anything_ like the leader of a terrorist organization.

"His name, or at least what we think is his name, is Kyle Jerrins," Blunt said. "And until we know what he wants, you and your classmates are going to be sent to one of the safest places on Earth."

Alex mentally swore, paused, decided it wasn't enough to express his irritation, and swore again.

* * *

><p>Today was the day his class left for Wales. It was 4:00 o'clock in the morning, which gave him enough time to complete his exercises before arriving at school. The bus drive would take <em>hours<em> and Alex was not looking forward to it. Who would?

His classmates had reacted with excitement. Excitement! As if going to a camp full of angry soldiers would be fun. Didn't they know any better? Hadn't they at least seen the films? Training camps were hell, and Brecon Beacons was no bloody exception.

Alex groaned, swore again for good measure, and set off at a jog around the neighborhood. By the end of the street, the agent that patrolled around his house had caught up to him. The agent, whom Alex referred to only as "Andy" (though that doubtlessly wasn't his real name), nodded to him and said, "How far today?"

"Four miles," Alex replied. After his latest mission, he had felt extremely weak and set himself on a rigorous exercise regime to regain his former fitness. He averaged around five miles a day, and he didn't want to overexert himself today.

Andy nodded. "Think you can keep up?"

Alex smirked. It had become a competition between the two of them over the past month, to see who could run the fastest and complete the most pushups and so on. They were fairly evenly matched, as Andy sometimes purposefully lost the running challenge only to come back and beat Alex in all of his other exercises. "You're on," he shot back and increased his speed slightly.

If there was one thing Alex loved, it was running. There was something oddly soothing about it, the way his feet pounded rhythmically on the ground in time to his breathing. It was very easy not to think during a run. It was one of the only times where he could actually turn his brain partially off.

A spy never completely relaxed his senses, after all.

Andy accelerated slightly on the corner, gaining on Alex. Narrowing his eyes at Andy's back, he decided not to speed back up and overtake him. That was doubtlessly what Andy wanted. If he overtired himself at the beginning, he would have no strength to finish out the end.

Slightly more than thirty minutes later, Alex and Andy returned to the house after a cool-down walk. Alex was breathing hard, but he was also triumphant. He had managed to beat out Andy at the very end by three seconds, a time that was quite impressive. In running, half a second could make all the difference. Glowering slightly, Andy bent to touch his toes.

Alex copied him, groaning as his legs protested. He was usually fairly flexible, but he had been lax about his stretching lately, and his muscles definitely noticed. The pair cycled through their stretches in silence before beginning the next part of their routine. Pushups. Situps. Trunk lifts. The list went on, and it was nearing 5:30 by the time the two trooped inside the house to shower.

Jack was waiting for him on the sofa, still in her night robe and yawning. She clutched a cup of coffee as if it were her lifeline. "You're certifiably insane," she mumbled as he passed.

He grinned at her. Usually Jack slept in until around 6:30, so it was odd to see her up. "What are you doing awake before the sun?"

"Please, the sun rose half an hour ago," Jack grumbled, rubbing her eyes. "The bitch came through my window and blinded me."

Alex hid a grin. Jack always reprimanded him for swearing, but when she was sleepy she often swore herself. "Want me to make breakfast?"

Jack wrinkled her nose. "Nah, it's fine," she said, waving her hand at him. "I can do it."

Alex raised an eyebrow. Jack's hair was rumpled and half flattened weirdly, makeup smudged beneath her eyes, and she looked utterly exhausted. "Go back to sleep," he said. "I don't mind cooking - I actually like it."

"Who could _like_ that devil's art?" Jack muttered, standing to return to her room. "Thanks, kid. We're leaving for the bus at 7, okay?"

"Sounds good!" Alex called back before taking the steps two at a time towards the bathroom. He was feeling much better now that he had awakened properly. He rather enjoyed the feeling he got after a workout. He was simultaneously alert and ready for the day, but at the same time he felt nicely relaxed. It was a good combination.

Unfortunately, by the time Jack and Alex were pulling up to the buses at Brookland, his good feeling had dissipated entirely. Alex slouched in the back seat (as Andy was in the front), looking out of the window with increasing dread. "Worst idea _ever_," he muttered, again.

Jack rolled her eyes expressively. "You know I agree, Alex, but seriously! There's nothing you can do."

"It's still stupid," he said rebelliously, before lapsing into silence. There were so many things left unsaid! Blunt had hardly given him any instruction before he had left. The two things he had told Alex were: the Sergeant has more information, and that Alex should use his discretion for any potential problems.

Yeah, like _that_ was bloody useful.

Alex obviously had to keep his cover, but there didn't seem an easy way to do that. Obviously, he could act abysmally bad, but that would take a lot of concentration. Alex's reflexes were highly honed out of necessity, and it was difficult to fake being pants at everything. How was he supposed to live in a room with other people? He wouldn't be able to change, for fear of showing everybody his scars, and he would doubtlessly have nightmares every night. Alex shivered at the thought. Just last night, a terrifying dream had gripped him for much of the night, and he had awoken drenched in sweat and screaming in horror.

_I can't do this_, Alex thought despondently as he got out of the car.

Almost as if she knew what he was thinking (he wouldn't put it past her, she knew him quite well), Jack nudged his shoulder gently. "You've faced worse," she whispered somberly. "I think you can handle a few teenagers, yeah?"

Alex smiled unwillingly in return. Yes, he had faced worse - he didn't even want to think about it. Still, the thought of getting on that bus filled him with apprehension. "I suppose."

"You'll be perfectly fine," Jack replied. "And if those idiots from last time bother you, give them a swift kick from me, alright?"

K-Unit! Shit, what if K-Unit was there? Alex bit his lip. He had thought about this all last night, unable to properly sleep with his nightmares, yet he hadn't found a solution. He would just have to pray that K-Unit wouldn't be there, and if they were, they'd be smart enough to ignore him.

He hoped.

* * *

><p>The bus was small, cramped, and smelly. Alex wrinkled his nose as he entered, taking a seat at the front of the bus. He sat alone, though Tom had motioned towards an empty seat nearby. He didn't intend to be very sociable, after all. No, Alex put on headphones, turned up the volume, and shut his eyes.<p>

He knew he would need all the sleep he could get.

Unfortunately for him, he was woken rudely by a large boy poking him. The moment the boy's finger had touched Alex, the smaller boy had opened his eyes. It had taken all of his self control to stop himself from attacking. _How was he supposed to hide those sort of impulses?_

"Jumpy, much, Rider?" The boy chuckled.

"Sod off, Cameron," Alex muttered, not waiting to get baited.

Cameron ignored him. "You know we're going to train with soldiers," he said, his voice excited. "What're you going to do, sit in the tent?" At Alex's look of confusion, he elaborated. "I mean, you're so skinny and weak they wouldn't let you train."

The bus laughed as a whole. Cameron's friend, Fred, snorted. "Don't you know that Rider's part of a gang, Cam?" Fred smirked. "He's not going to be sitting in the tent, he's going to be sitting behind bars the whole time."

Alex put his headphones in, but Cameron leaned over and plucked them out, crumpling them in his meaty palm. "I'm not done talking to you, shrimp," he said.

It was ironic, Alex mused. He was no shrimp, but his schoolmates seemed to turn a blind eye to the inches and muscle he'd put on in the past couple of years. He had once been captain of the football team, and now he was taunted as a weakling. Alex could incapacitate the entire bus if he wanted to, but instead he had to sit tight, play the pussy, and take the abuse.

"Shut up, Cameron," Tom said from somewhere behind Alex. "We all know you're going to be the first to hurt yourself."

Cameron sneered at Tom. "I wasn't talking to you. I was talking to Rider. Hey, Rider, I heard you were out for months because you got the _flu_. Who the fuck misses school for more than a couple of days because of the _flu_? Hell, a cough is gonna kill you one of these days."

Instead of answering, Alex reminded himself that if Cameron was ever confronted with one of the horrors Alex had lived through, he wouldn't make it out alive. An image of Cameron, pants wet, running screaming from a shadowy figure made him smirk.

"What are you smiling about, Rider?" Cameron said. "What, you suicidal or something? Does thinking about death make you laugh?"

The rest of the bus shifted uncomfortably. The idea of suicide was not amusing to any of them. "Shut up," said a girl named Brooke. "Don't talk like that, Cameron."

Even Cameron realized he'd crossed a line. He snorted and landed a light punch on Alex's shoulder. He hit a particularly nasty bruise and Alex couldn't stop the wince. Cameron snorted at that and muttered something about pussies before sitting back in his seat.

Alex sat back in his seat as well. _Don't let yourself be baited,_ he told himself. _Your anger is your weak point. _Surprisingly enough, he couldn't bring himself to be angry. Cameron's taunts meant nothing to him.

He closed his eyes again and shut out the world.

* * *

><p><strong>AN2: if any of the scenes don't have breaks in them where they should, or it's confusing, please tell me. I used an asterix in my word document to separate scenes, and FF formatted them out. **

**Review!**


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: This is all you're getting this week, haha. I believe we made it up to this point on my last attempt? There's some new material in here, for old readers. Please review! (Again, with the breaks within scenes, please please please point out if it's confusing. FF keeps formatting out the breaks I typed on Word). **

* * *

><p>His class murmured excitedly as the bus pulled into the training grounds a few hours later. Brecon Beacons was as dreary as Alex remembered it, with soldiers milling around in the gray landscape, each looking identically nondescript. A large man was waiting for them as they exited the bus, a man Alex knew only as the Sergeant. He was as intimidating as every, with a displeased scowl and crossed arms. He had large, muscular arms and legs and a short black buzz cut that was typical of the soldiers.<p>

As the kids piled out, clutching their bags and trunks, a few soldiers stopped and looked at them curiously. Their expressions were mostly hostile, and Alex groaned softly to himself. Just what they needed: soldiers thinking that the kids were intruding. He remembered their attitudes to him last time, and mentally multiplied that by around forty. This would go excellently, he was sure...

The Sergeant stood motionless as the noise volume grew steadily louder. Kids were whispering and pointed at things, laughing or complaining. Over the din, a pulse clicked solidly in the Sergeant's jaw, and Alex flinched reflexively. What a way to start.

"Silence!"

Nobody quieted. In fact, Alex would have to say people got louder.

"SILENCE!" This time, the Sergeant's bellow was earsplitting. Many of Alex's classmates jumped, and even the nearby soldiers tensed at the anger in his voice. Over the resulting dead silence, the Sergeant began speaking. His voice was quiet and deadly. "When I tell you lot to be silent, you bloody well better shut your traps, understand? I don't tolerate this kind of behavior from anybody! You will act as soldiers while you are here, and that means zero disrespect!"

Alex snorted mentally and wished the Sergeant good luck.

"You will address me, or any of my soldiers, as 'sir,' understand? You will not talk back, and you will obey. You will keep your barracks clean, or you will be punished. You will wake up on time, or you will be punished. You will eat at the allotted time, or you won't eat at all."

The teenagers looked at each other nervously. This wasn't sounding like a field trip. This sounded like the Sergeant actually expected them to behave like real soldiers. That wasn't what they had signed up for!

Alex half-tuned out the Sergeant as he looked around. By the sounds of it, he'd gotten roughly the same lecture when he had arrived in Wales the first time. He already knew the rules, and where everything was. That wouldn't be his biggest obstacle here by far.

Before Alex had left, Mrs. Jones had taken him aside. _"Alan doesn't want me to tell you this," _she had admitted reluctantly, looking cautious, "_but we think that Scorpia is going to send an agent to watch you, and possibly bring you in_."

As Alex looked around the camp, his eyes caught the places where a spy could physically watch him. The camp was large, but it was mostly flat. However, there were a lot of trees outside the main camp. It would be difficult for somebody to hide behind a building or tank, but not impossible. Alex was relatively certain a sniper would have a difficult job taking him out. From what he remembered last time, there were strict regulations on gun usage. Somebody carrying a sniper rifle anywhere other than the firing range would definitely stick out, though Alex supposed they could hide it disassembled in a duffle bag. Still, there weren't many places where a sniper could hide to pick him off.

Of course, it was entirely possible that Scorpia had sent in a man to infiltrate the SAS themselves. That one was more difficult, as Alex wouldn't be able to tell. He would have to distance himself from all of the units and keep an eye out for anything suspicious. Alex was good at that; it was part of the job description, after all.

Back in the barracks, there were neat lines of beds, each with a pressed and folded uniform stacked on top. Boots were placed at the foots, and there was a card with a name on each pillow. Alex quickly found **Rider, Alex** and set his things down. He didn't make a move to put on his uniform, but he did exchange his trainers for boots, making sure the twenty pound note he kept tucked into his sock remained secure. The way the barracks were situated, Alex's bed was luckily quite close to the door. Mike Ramirez and Kevin Rohan, the two boys on either side of Alex, didn't ring any bells in his mind. He could match their names with a face, but they had never particularly interacted with him in any way.

Alex slid his trunk under the bed and stood up to see Tom standing in front of him. "Cool place, huh?" Tom said enthusiastically, his eyes widening innocently. "Did you see the shooting range? Man!"

Alex tried to copy his friend's zeal. "I know, it looks wicked," he agreed.

Tom grinned and jerked his head to the side. "I saw some soldiers practicing, want to go check it out? We have an hour until dinner."

Alex was about to say that they weren't supposed to be wandering off, but the look in Tom's eyes convinced him otherwise. "Okay," he said, shrugging on his jacket. "But I don't fancy missing a meal on the first day."

As the two walked out of the door, Tom answered, "You know me, I'd never miss a meal!"

"You could stand to," Alex shot back with a meaningful look at Tom's stomach. "What do you eat every day, chips?"

Tom struck a pose. "A growing boy's gotta eat, you know.'

They migrated towards the firing range. "Growing?" Alex smirked. "I wouldn't call it that. I'm pretty sure that in order to grow, you have to, you know, get taller."

They kept up the banter for a few steps, until they had reached the range. Standing a few meters back, Tom dropped his voice. "So, why're we here?"

Alex shrugged. "The attacks on the school," he equivocated, trying to look innocent. "They think it'll be safer."

Tom gave Alex a sharp look. "Is that all?"

Alex met his friend's eye. The first rule of lying was to always look the person dead on in the eyes. "I promise."

Tom raised a skeptical eyebrow, but he changed the subject. "Whoa! Did you see that man shoot? Bullseye!"

Alex smiled to himself, wondering how Tom would react if he ever saw Alex shoot.

* * *

><p>The next morning, Alex awoke instantly at four-thirty. Quietly grabbing his things, he went outside to get a breath of fresh air. Everybody inside the barracks were sleeping quietly. He didn't dare go for a run, but hiding slightly behind the building, Alex began his normal routine of stationary exercises. He was careful not to make any noise, and kept a sharp eye out for any men passing. Once, in the middle of pushups, an SAS man jogged dangerously close to Alex. He had immediately dropped to the ground and pressed himself into the side of the house, and the soldier had jogged on unaware.<p>

He watched the bathrooms for sign of movement, as units took their turns inside. At around 5:30, Alex estimated that all units were done showering and were in the mess, eating. To prevent too much student-soldier interaction, student meal times had been pushed forward an hour. Alex took the towel he had brought with him and slipped inside the shower-house.

There weren't any stalls, only a communal room with four spigots on each side of a wall. Choosing the side of the wall away from the door, Alex quickly stripped and turned on the shower. Not caring that it was cold, he washed his hair and rid his body of sweat. He kept his chest turned into the wall, so that even if somebody entered, they would only see his back. A scarred back was much easier to explain than a bullet hole on a teenager.

Luckily, Alex didn't run into anyone, and he made it back without detection. The room was still dark, and he rolled his eyes, walking over to Tom's bed. Did the idiots _want_ to miss breakfast? He shook Tom awake.

Tom opened his eyes blearily. "Fuck off," he mumbled, catching sight of Alex. "Why the hell are you dressed?"

"Because breakfast is in an hour," Alex replied smartly. "And I don't know about you, but I don't want to miss it."

"It'll be shitty anyway," Tom replied but swung his legs out of bed anyway. He cocked his head and looked at Alex curiously, his hair a spiky mess. With sleep lining his face and his blue eyes slightly unfocused, he looked much younger than Alex remembered. "I know what you said yesterday, but I was thinking, and..._you_'_re_ not in any trouble, are you?" His expression was worried.

"I won't be if everybody wakes up in the next ten minutes," Alex said, deliberately misunderstanding.

Tom ignored the comment and gave his best friend a hard stare. "You can tell me, you know," he snapped. "This isn't a field trip. I know that. So tell me: are you in trouble? Are we in trouble?"

Alex swept his hand out, indicating the rows of bed with a pointed look that said _'not now.'_ "Yeah," he answered vaguely, "But nothing for you to worry about."

One side of Tom's mouth pulled down, showing his displeasure, but the small boy got out of bed without questioning him at the moment. As Alex had hoped, he shoved his friend in the next bed. "Oi, Lennard, get your lazy arse out of bed."

They made it to the mess hall only ten minutes late. Nobody had questioned why Alex was already dressed. Nobody had noticed him at all, really, a fact Alex was thankful for.

However, at the mess hall, Alex had just gotten a tray of food and sat down when Mr. Bray, the school principal, towered over him. A few teachers had accompanied the teenagers, but Alex didn't really know any of them. Mr. Bray's face was stern when he announced, loudly enough for everybody else to hear, "After breakfast, Rider, you are to come with me."

"Yes, sir," Alex replied, wondering what _that_ was about. He wasn't sure if the teachers had been briefed on the actual reason for the field trip, but he reckoned he would find out soon.

Those around Alex snickered. "In trouble already, shrimp?" Cameron hissed across the table, smiling unpleasantly. "I heard the soldiers are ace at giving out punishments."

Alex took a bite of the 'eggs' on his plate before replying, "You tell me, I have a feeling you'll be better acquainted with them than I will."

Cameron's look of confusion was funny, to say the least, and Alex shook his head as he returned to the meal. The food was, honestly, disgusting, but Alex knew first hand what it was like to be without any sort of food. He hadn't wasted food since he began working for MI6. The kids nearby didn't have any reservations about complaining, though.

"This is disgusting!" "Ew, is this even _food_?" "I'd rather be hungry than eat this shit." "I'm going to phone home and have my mum send me some actual food." Alex clenched his jaw as their griping grew louder, but he tried not to get mad. It wasn't their faults that they were spoiled, immature brats who couldn't appreciate the value of having food in their stomachs.

Though his appetite was gone, Alex carefully ate every bit of his breakfast before returning the tray. The cook, a grizzled old man that Alex remembered from last time, peered at him curiously. "Do I know you?"

Alex froze. "No," he said, injecting his voice with disdain. "Like I'd have come here before."

The cook sniffed and Alex walked away. He hadn't thought that the staff would have recognized him. Perhaps some of the units might too. After all, they hadn't made an effort to keep his presence secret last time.

Outside, he waited until Mr. Bray exited the building. With a stern look to Alex, the two began walking together. Alex, feeling uncomfortable, lagged slightly behind.

They entered a small building, and Alex mentally groaned as the Sergeant stood, waiting for them. He jerked his head towards an office. "Come."

They followed. Alex was pleased to see that Mr. Bray looked as wary as Alex felt. He clearly didn't know what this was about either. Once inside, they sat on the opposite side of the Sergeant's desk and waited for an explanation.

"We believe that Rider is in danger," the Sergeant said sharply, without any preamble. Mr. Bray flinched, and the Sergeant continued. "Extra measures will be taken to protect him."

"Why?" Mr. Bray demanded, staring at Alex. "Who would be targeting him?"

The list of people who had cause to target Alex was entirely too long, he mused. And, did Mr. Bray seriously not know about the rumors surrounding Alex? Was he deaf to it all? Alex hoped desperately that the Sergeant was going to say something, _anything_, about gangs, but to no avail. The older man simply slid a manila folder across the table, as if they were in a spy movie.

Clearly having the same thought, Mr. Bray opened it cautiously. Alex peeked over his shoulder and froze.

At the very top of the page, it said SCORPIA in large, black letters.

They had to be kidding! Why on Earth would they tell Mr. Bray about Scorpia? Why were they outing his identity? Alex shot his fiercest glare at the Sergeant, who didn't meet his eyes. They didn't think that Alex would want to know about this before they told Mr. Bray? How was he supposed to react?

_Use your discretion_, Blunt's voice said in Alex's head.

That didn't help.

Alex read the file from his position next to Mr. Bray. It wasn't a comprehensive file, of course. It simply stated the basics. Scorpia was a terrorist group. Alex had pissed off the wrong people. They came to take revenge. Simple.

Mr. Bray started to laugh.

That had not been the reaction Alex was expecting.

"You have got to be kidding me," the principal said, though his face was pale. "How could Alex even know about this - this Scorpia, let alone manage to destroy one of their operations? What do you take me for, a fool?"

In answer, the Sergeant slid another file across the table. Having a bad feeling about it, Alex quickly picked it up and flipped it open before Mr. Bray could get to it. Seeing his own face staring back at him, he snapped it shut quickly. "Is this some kind of joke?"

"I suggest you read the file, Mr. Bray," the Sergeant said dryly. "I expect it will explain a lot about Rider."

_No no no no_! Alex jerked the file away. "This is _private_!"

"Alex, let me see it," Mr. Bray said coaxingly. "I'm sure whatever is in here can't be too bad. Obviously you haven't been mixed up in any terrorist affairs - "

The Sergeant plucked the file neatly out of Alex's hand, ignoring the boy's cry, and handed it to Mr. Bray. As the principal read it, Alex tried to nonverbally communicate to the Sergeant that he was _making a grave mistake,_ and that Alex hadn't thought the SAS was so _stupid, _but the man kept his eyes on Mr. Bray.

When he was done reading, Mr. Bray's face was ashen and he stared at Alex with a dawning sort of horror. "It's a joke," he said quietly, grasping at straws.

Alex started to nod his head, but the Sergeant's sharp voice interrupted. "Rest assured, it is not. That is why Rider needs to be protected."

"That's why there were attacks at the school," Mr. Bray said, still in that quiet, calm voice.

Alex nodded slowly.

"You were never sick. You were just recovering."

Was he going to get expelled?

"That's why you blew up the science lab."

Alex winced at the memory.

The Sergeant looked amused, but his voice was stern. "I trust you understand the importance of keeping Alex's occupation a secret?"

"Occupation?" Mr. Bray's laugh was bordering on crazy. "An occupation for a teenager would be washing cars, or mowing the lawn, or working at a café. This is not an occupation! How can they use a _teenager?"_

Alex clenched his jaw. The truth was, he agreed with everything Mr. Bray was saying, but it still hurt to hear it. The fear, the _disgust_, in Mr. Bray's eyes was everything Alex feared seeing in his classmates. Mr. Bray needed to keep it a secret, he had to!

The Sergeant reached into drawer and pulled out a copy of the Official Secrets Act. "Sign here."

While Mr. Bray was signing, Alex spoke quietly. "Can you tell me about the threat?"

The Sergeant shook his head. "We have it under control."

"Do you?"

"It's nothing you need to worry about. Dismissed."

The Sergeant followed them outside, and they walked to the open space where the teenagers had been instructed to wait after breakfast. As they walked, Alex pondered the unknown threat. He knew it was Scorpia, and he thought that somebody was probably watching him, but he couldn't be sure. If they were watching him, why didn't they just kill him and get it over with? There was no love lost between Alex and Scorpia, and he was sure they would jump at the chance to rid themselves of him. Why was he even still alive?

Why hadn't MI6 given him more information? Did they even know what was happening? MI6 never sent him into a situation without some type of assistance (normally from Smithers), and Mrs. Jones had specifically told him that the Sergeant would have more to tell him once he arrived. Every teenager in the camp was at risk from a terrorist organization, and it was foolish to assume that, if Scorpia struck, the SAS men would stay out of the conflict. Surely there was some type of contingency plan? Though MI6 had no qualms about toying with his life, they wouldn't do the same to so many other teenagers. It was too much bad publicity for them to deal with. They could make people sign as many documents as they wanted, but MI6 knew that it only took one person to squeal for everything to come crashing down.

Alex frowned, but the Sergeant shouted at them all to shut up and began to talk. "Today, you will be completing an obstacle course," barked the Sergeant. Alex very nearly rolled his eyes. In every single film or book about the military, an obstacle course was featured prominently. _Couldn't they have gotten more creative?_

Alex had completed an obstacle course with the K-Unit the last time he had been here, but that experience had been absolutely awful. He doubted they would subject the school to the same type of torture. After all, they hardly could expect them to scale a ten-foot wall.

* * *

><p>...at least, that was what Alex had thought. Staring up at a large wall made out of huge logs lashed together, Alex nearly stifled a groan before deciding that <em>anybody<em> would be groaning at the sight. "The hell," Alex complained, gesturing at the wall. "Who do they think we are, Spiderman?"

This earned him a sly smile from one of the two girls. "Well, maybe. Had any weird bites to go along with your appendicitis scar, Rider?"

"Rider's too much of a pussy for that," the other boy on their four-person unit sneered. This was Jeremy, a stocky boy who excelled at athletics. He gave a flirty smile to the girl who'd spoken and wiggled his fingers at her. "_My_ spidey senses are tingling though, Brooke."

"Oh?" Brooke asked, raising a skeptical eyebrow. "Can your spidey senses get us over that wall?"

Alex watched this interaction with a faint sense of amusement. Brooke was very pretty, with curling brown hair and a wide grin. Alex had noticed that Jeremy liked her the moment the boy had seen Brooke standing as part of their 'unit.'

Jeremy gave a self-assured grin, cracking his knuckles. "Let's do this." He eyed the logs and went at them with a running jump. His feet found a hold in the space between logs but his hands grappled wildly above him.

The other girl - what was her name? - burst out laughing as Jeremy slipped and fell. Brooke was grinning, and even Alex had to smile. "Nice try, Spiderman," Brooke called out.

Jeremy stood and dusted his pants. "What are you smiling at, Rider?" He snapped, clearly embarrassed. "Let's see you try."

As much as Alex wanted to show up the idiot, he knew that was a stupid idea. Instead, he contented himself with managing to climb to a higher log before falling to the ground. Brooke gave him a somewhat surprised look but didn't speak.

Alex watched the other three try to climb up the wall. _This is ridiculous_. Getting over the wall would never happen if they tried to do it themselves. They needed to boost each over the wall and then help the fourth person over.

As Jeremy struggled - again - to get over the wall single handedly, Alex inched closer to Brooke.

"What do you want, Rider?" Brooke asked, nursing a bruise on her knee. "If you're trying to be sneaky, you're rotten at it."

He smirked at that before dropping his voice. "You've seen military films, haven't you?"

"Is that some kind of pick-up line, Rider? I'll save you time: I'm not interested."

"I'm not trying," he shot back. Brooke looked a little abashed, but not by much. He jerked his head at Jeremy. "We both know Spiderman over there isn't going to get over by himself."

"What are you suggesting?"

He shrugged. "Maybe if one of us helped him..." Alex trailed off suggestively. _It's not rocket science!_

Brooke frowned, forehead wrinkling. "I guess one of us could boost him over," she said thoughtfully. "But who would help the last person?"

Alex shrugged. "If he jumped and got his hands to the top, we could pull him over."

She gave him an appraising look. "Not a bad plan, Rider."

"I may be weak but I'm smart occasionally," he replied, smiling in amusement at the lie. If only they knew...

"Emphasis on 'occasionally,'" Brooke said before walking over to tap Jeremy on the shoulder after yet another failed attempt.

Thirty long minutes later, the unit had managed to get over the wall and come across a nasty pit of mud with palm-sized circular pieces of metal sprinkled across. Jeremy tested one with his foot and announced that they were most likely strong enough to hold their weight before stepping completely onto one.

Though Alex would have liked for the boy to fall into the mud, he made it across the pit by jumping from disc to disc. Brooke followed nimbly after, and Alex went third. The last girl followed him immediately, insisting she wasn't going to be left behind.

He was about halfway when the girl froze. "I can't make it," she said, voice high. "I'm going to fall!"

"No, you're not," Alex said, rolling his eyes. He pointed to a disc not one foot away. "Step on that one."

She did, landing unsteadily with one foot. She wobbled and for one terse second nearly fell over. Instead of regaining her balance, she leaped forward, aiming for the disc that Alex was standing on. "Move!" The girl shrieked.

"What the hell?" Alex shouted, twisting around to jump. He would have made it safe and sound if the girl hadn't pulled at his shirt to steady herself and upsetting his own sense of balance. With a splash, Alex fell into the stinking mud, spluttering with incoherent rage. "Why the bloody hell would you do that?"

"You wouldn't move!" The girl yelled prissily as Alex hoisted himself out of the mud, his clothes dirty and his face slicked with brown.

"If you had _told_ me to move, I would have!"

"I did tell you!"

"Yeah, five seconds before you landed on me!" Alex gave it up and turned to assess his situation, ignoring the laughter of Jeremy and Brooke. God, this was disgusting. He wiped his face and shook as much mud as he could off his clothes. He hated this. Why were teenagers so dumb?

The rest of the course was relatively easy. They had to navigate through a small maze made out of ropes and duck and crawl under a wooden platform close to the ground. Alex arrived back at camp soaking wet, as he had purposefully fallen into the stream they had to rope-swing across in order to clean that damned mud off.

They were the fifth unit back, a perfectly average score. Alex went to shower while the rest of them gathered to chat excitedly about the course. Why they would want to rehash the torture was beyond him, but he didn't dwell on it.

The showers were, unfortunately, occupied by a unit. The four of them were large and muscled and sneered at Alex when he entered holding a towel and a clean uniform.

"Did you fall in the lake, baby?" One of them, probably the leader, said, towering over Alex.

Alex, who knew he couldn't shower with them there, muttered something inaudible and turned to go. He couldn't risk them seeing his scars, and he had decided not to be alone with any unit in case the mysterious Scorpia agent was there.

However, the man reached out and snagged his shirt. "Hey, baby, we're not done talking to you."

"I fell on purpose," Alex whined, imitating his classmates. He'd done the annoying-teenager bit so much that it was second nature to him - funny, since the attitude should be _first_ nature. At the very least, he could thank MI6 for ensuring he wasn't a brat.

They laughed at him. He looked at the ground, partly to act shy and partly because he had no desire to see their nudity. The unit was unconcerned about their lack of clothing, but he supposed that was to be expected.

"You can shower, kid," said one of them after a moment of silence. He chuckled. "You don't have to stand there looking so embarrassed."

"Getting soft, Mongoose?" One of the other men ribbed the one that had spoken.

Alex glanced up to see Mongoose raise his hands defensively. "Hey," he said, grinning slightly. "I have a kid now, I have to be soft."

"No you don't," said the leader, but he was smirking also. They seemed to have forgotten about Alex for the moment, so he tried to leave. Unfortunately, the leader spotted him. "Oi, kid, come back."

"What do you want?" Alex asked, genuinely curious.

The leader shrugged. "Why are children here?"

"You weren't told anything?"

Mongoose shook his head. "Nah," he said. "Is this some kind of field trip? How long are you staying?"

This news was a little bit unsettling to Alex. As there was a very large threat on his head, not to mention the lives of his classmates, it would have reassured him to know that there was a whole camp of SAS men that knew what to do in the case of an emergency. Obviously, protecting children was a priority, but it would make things easier if they knew the basics. "Yeah, it's a field trip," he said shortly. "And they didn't tell us how long we'd be staying."

The leader shrugged, dismissing his curiosity. "Alright, then, guess that's all we'll get. I'm Jackal, that's Mongoose, that quiet one is Frog and the one with the dark hair is Pelican. We're L-Unit."

"Alex," he said.

"You want to shower? We won't look," said Mongoose. The others laughed at that. "Promise."

He bit his lip, wondering what to do. "Uh, I can wait until you're gone," Alex said, playing the part of shy teenager.

They didn't protest, finishing their showers and dressing with no hint of embarrassment. Alex noticed that Mongoose left a small figurine behind, but he didn't want to go outside and tell the man. He figured the SAS man would come back later and get it at the end of the day.

Instead, he cautiously stripped his shirt and stepped into the lukewarm spray. He soaped himself quickly with the rough bar soap and rinsed out the last traces of mud from his hair and body. Alex closed his eyes, turning his face directly up to the spray.

"Holy shit," came a voice from the entrance. Alex tensed immediately and but didn't spin around, recognizing Mongoose's voice. _Fuck! How could I be so careless? Day 1 and you've already blown it. _"What the hell, kid?"

Alex grabbed his towel and wrapped it around himself. "I get bullied," he said defensively, glad that the man hadn't seen his chest. No common bully would put a bullet through a teenager.

Mongoose sighed and glanced around for his trinket. "Sorry for interrupting," he said hastily before scooping up the figurine. He paused momentarily. "You should do something," he said quickly. "About the bullying, I mean." The man was gone before Alex could say anything in response.

Alex frowned at the door as he dried himself off and slipped into the uniform. That had been odd, to say the least, though he was glad Mongoose hadn't pressed the issue. Alex walked over to the sole mirror in the loo and examined his back and legs over his shoulder. Though there was an angry scar running down his back, the majority of the scars could, he supposed, be explained off because of bullies.

He would just have to be more careful.

* * *

><p>The next day passed very similarly. Instead of an obstacle course, they had to attend a lecture on improvising medication techniques when camping or without supplies. Alex had paid strict attention, though his classmates' attention wandered. God knew how many times he'd been injured without proper medicinal help.<p>

He noticed the teachers all looking at him with horrified eyes throughout the day and figured that either Bray couldn't keep his mouth shut, or the Sergeant had informed them all. Either way, Alex avoided meeting any of their eyes. He kept to himself mostly, eating alone at breakfast, lunch and dinner. Most of the teenagers ignored him today, though Brooke had given him a small smile during breakfast. Alex stayed to himself during fitness training. During the hour of free time they received, however, he found himself cornered by Tom. Alex had been sitting cross-legged on his bed, studying for his return to school.

Realizing instantly what Tom wanted to talk about, Alex closed his Chem book. "Hey, Tom."

"Can we talk somewhere?"

Alex glanced around at the noisy barrack full of boys and nodded. "Yeah, let's, uh, go somewhere." He slipped from his bed and put on a thin jacket to keep himself warm as they wandered outside.

The only empty place was near the pier. The boys sat on the ground and Alex stared in disgust at the look of the zipline stretched over the lake. Oh, how he hated that lake.

Once they arrived, Tom gave Alex a challenging look. "What is it?"

"It?"

"The threat, Alex, I'm not dull," Tom said, shaking his head. "I know the attacks were all connected to you. Hell, I almost got shot at!"

"Maybe you made someone mad," protested Alex. He didn't know why he didn't want to tell Tom, but he evaded the subject anyway.

"What could I have done to get shot at? It was those people that want you dead, isn't it?" Tom said, looking far more serious than Alex could ever remember.

"I don't know, you're pretty good at pissing people off." Alex asked with dry humor.

Tom's hand grabbed a fist full of dirt. "That isn't funny, Alex."

Alex shrugged. "If you mean Scorpia, then yes, it's them," he confirmed. Tom sucked in a breath and dug his hand further into the dirt.

"Shit, Alex," Tom breathed heavily, his blue eyes worried. "Is that why we're here? Because all of the _SAS men _can protect us?"

"Yeah," Alex said after a beat. It was odd how Tom had heavily emphasized 'SAS men.' "Just in case."

Tom continued, voice forceful, "Which means that if Scorpia attacks, you'll stay out of the way, right?"

Alex couldn't promise that. Hell, he knew that the moment he caught wind of Scorpia attacking, he'd be the first one out the door trying to stop them. "It's my job, Tom," Alex said softly.

"Fuck your job," Tom snapped. He waved his hand around him. "Alex, we're surrounded by trained soldiers. If Scorpia attacks, they won't need a teenager to do their work!"

"I'm not just a teenager, Tom!" Alex whispered harshly. He groaned in the next second and passed his hands over his eyes, exhausted - he didn't want to fight with Tom.

Tom didn't back down, however. "Think about it, Alex. If you get outed as a spy, you'll be miserable. It's better to let the SAS men handle it."

"Fine," Alex lied, backing down easily to reassure Tom. Sure, he may be miserable known as a spy, but he'd rather be miserable then have the death of one of his schoolmates - of anybody, really - because he didn't want to expose himself.

Tom wasn't buying it. "Promise."

"Promise," Alex said, knowing perfectly well he had no intention of keeping that promise.

The two sat in moody silence for a while, the dampness pressing in on all sides. "Why are they after you, anyway?" Tom asked quietly after a few seconds, doubtlessly remembering Venice.

He mused how to answer that - where to begin? He had told Tom the basics, but never really gone into detail. "I pissed off the wrong people," he said shortly. "I turned on them from the inside."

The moment that sentence was out, he wanted to take it back. By the look of dawning horror on Tom's face, he knew that any chance of pretending he hadn't said that were slim to none. "From the inside? Dammit, Alex! You can't mean..."

"Yeah," he said uncomfortably.

"For how long?"

Alex didn't want to admit that time lost any meaning whilst deep in the midst of an organization like Scorpia. Sometimes Alex had to struggle to remember his true identity, let alone the date. "A couple weeks, maybe a month or so," he said vaguely.

The shorter boy stood up, and Alex was surprised to see anger on his face. "Fuck MI6," he spat out in a voice that was entirely too loud for Alex's liking.

"Be quiet, Tom," Alex said, standing as well. "You don't know who's around to listen."

"Yes, but I know when something is wrong, and this sure as hell is wrong!" Tom cried, though he lowered his voice. He jammed his hands into his pockets and stared at Alex. "Do they even care about you?"

_No. _"Yes," Alex said, face calm. _I'm valuable to them, but they don't care about me_. "Some of them do care."

"If they cared, they wouldn't send you knee-deep into a terrorist organization!" Tom whispered, voice harsh. He shook his head and paced back and forth. "Shit, Alex, this is dangerous."

"Yes, it's dangerous," Alex said, imitating Tom by walking a few steps up and then turning. "But someone's got to do it."

Tom made a sound of disgust - though Alex knew it wasn't directed at him - and stormed off. Alex followed, albeit at a much slower pace. Yes, it was dangerous, and yes, it wasn't fair. What was he supposed to do about it? Rank his life higher than others? Who was he to say that he should be a comfortable schoolboy when his being a spy saved lives?

* * *

><p>The next day, Alex cornered Tom before the activity for the day - a short lesson on martial arts - began.<p>

At breakfast, Alex had stealthily pick-pocketed Tom's wallet when the boys had brushed past each other on the way in. He wasn't doing it to steal from his friend, but he knew Tom was very protective of his money, coming from the lower-income side of the school. As many of the SAS men and teenagers alike filed out of the mess hall, Alex dropped the wallet on the floor underneath where Tom had sitting so that it appeared as if it had slipped out of Tom's pocket. He then looked around him to make sure nobody was watching and accidentally-on-purpose knocked his tray off so that the remainder of his breakfast spilled over the benches and floor.

"Boy!" The cook shouted at the disturbance. He was a mean looking man with entirely too much to do in little time. He waved his dirty rag menacingly at Alex. "You better clean that up, understand?"

"Yes, sir," Alex said promptly, voice scared. The few people left in the hall sniggered at the sight of Alex on his hands and knees mopping food off the floor, but he ignored them.

Though he was trying to linger, Alex had managed to clean up the majority of the mess by the time Tom realized his wallet was missing and doubled back to the mess hall. He'd taken three steps inside before he saw Alex cleaning with unnecessarily slow movements and connected the dots. "Alex, give me back my wallet," Tom said tiredly.

Alex wiped the last bit of juice up from the floor and picked up his tray, turning to face his friend. "I think I spotted it under your chair."

"Of course you did, seeing as you probably put it there," Tom muttered to himself, going over to retrieve it. Alex deposited his tray at the drop-off and waited near the door - there was only one exit, and so Tom wouldn't be able to slink out without speaking to him.

"I plead not guilty," Alex said with a small smile as Tom approached him. His best friend rolled his eyes but smiled unwillingly.

"You think you of all people would be a better liar," Tom shot back, though there was no heat in his voice.

Alex shrugged and the two of them began walking out of the mess. "I guess I need more practice."

"What do you want, Alex?" Tom asked, for once unwilling to banter. He still looked upset after last night's revelation, a fact that worried Alex. Tom was not one to mull over things for long; he came to a decision quickly, stuck to it, and moved on to the next issue.

Alex lowered his voice, though there weren't many people around. "I wanted to make sure you weren't upset at me."

"I'm not upset at you."

Alex gave him a smirk. "I may be a bad liar," he joked, "but I can tell if somebody is lying, especially you."

Tom stopped to face Alex. "I'm not upset at _you_," he stressed again, before sighing. "Well, maybe a little…but I'm more pissed at those bastards you work for."

_Join the club. _"There's nothing you can do, Tom - I'm fine," Alex said convincingly, stretching out his arms to display himself. "Surely you don't believe the rumors, do you? I didn't really spend all that time in the hospital."

Tom had to smile at that and shoved his friend gently. "Well, you _are_ a weakling."

He pouted and rubbed his arm where Tom had pushed him, pretending it hurt. "I am not," Alex said in a fake-whiny tone, pleased to see that Tom wasn't as upset as Alex had thought.

However, the mood turned serious again when Tom kicked up some dirt from the ground. "You know, my parents want me to choose who gets custody of me," he said, apparently out of the blue.

Alex, who knew that the Harris family was going through rough times, nodded sympathetically. He didn't know how this connected to Tom's anger at MI6, but he knew better than to ask. "What are you thinking?"

Tom laughed bitterly. "My mum wants me to go with her," he said harshly, "But I think she only wants me to go so that my dad has to pay her child support, so that she has money to finance all her boyfriends."

"And your dad?" Alex asked softly, looking at his friend carefully. With all the time he'd spent away from Chelsea, Alex had managed to miss the drama that Tom was living through. That fact made him guilty; no wonder Tom was angry. Tom had been forced to go through everything without Alex at his side.

How had Alex missed all of this? _Damn MI6,_ he thought to himself. Not only were they affecting his life, they were affecting Tom's - and Sabina's as well.

"My dad doesn't even remember my name half the day," Tom said flatly. He looked at Alex and sighed. "I don't know, it's stupid; I mean, you have bigger things to worry about - "

"Shut up, Tom," Alex said before that thought could be completed. Yes, he had bigger things to worry about - namely, whether Scorpia was going to kill him or not. However, he could deal with it; he didn't need for Tom to put aside his troubles as well. "That's not true."

Tom shrugged and looked at the ground. He rarely held back what he was thinking. Though Alex and Tom hardly ever had very emotional conversations, when they did, Tom was always brutally honest, the cheerful, playful boy he normally was disappearing. "I just don't want to lose you too."

"You won't," Alex said, though it struck him hard that he could not promise that. "I'm tough to kill."

Tom seemed reassured, though he doubtlessly knew as well that Alex had no guarantees. "I know," he said, before shifting gears effortlessly. "We're going to martial arts, aren't we? Can you _please _kick Cameron's arse for me? He was on my unit yesterday and the wanker would not shut up!"

Alex smiled as well, the tension lifting. "You know I want to," he groaned theatrically. "But it would be odd if weakling Alex could beat up Cameron."

"Don't be weakling Alex," Tom pleaded as they began walking towards the area designated for the martial arts demonstration. "Be druggie Alex. Or rehab Alex. Or juvie Alex."

"People wonder why I'm weird when I have all those voices in my head," Alex said sarcastically, smiling slightly. "And anyway, you kick his arse. You went to lessons with me for a couple years."

"He's twice my size!" Tom protested. "He could sit on me and bam - flat Tom."

"At least your mouth would be shut," teased Alex, "though I wouldn't fancy going near you after you were squashed under his bum."

Tom opened his mouth to retort when a man stepped up to the front and bellowed for them to be silent. Alex, who had been expecting a miraculous return of K-Unit, breathed a sigh of relief that it wasn't Wolf hollering at them. Still, something niggled at his brain, and he took a closer look at the man.

Damn it, it was the leader of the unit he'd had a run-in with in the showers - L-Unit. What was his name? Jack-o-lantern? _Jackal._

"Shit," Alex muttered to himself, migrating towards a better spot in the crowd to get lost in. He did not want to be called out in front of everybody. He noticed the one that had seen his scars scan the crowd, doubtlessly looking for him, and Alex crouched slightly.

"You look ridiculous," Tom said, following him. "Are you hiding?"

"No, I'm standing like this for fun," Alex muttered sarcastically. He noticed Mongoose looking their way and bent to 'tie his shoe' as the man's gaze passed over them without spotting him.

Tom looked at Alex with slight bewilderment. "Do you know that man?"

"I met that unit yesterday," Alex whispered. "I don't want to get called on for a demonstration or anything like that."

Shortly after Alex had been forced through the terrible real-life version of a sadistic video-game, he had returned to his normal karate lessons. However, when his teacher called him up to spar, something strange had happened. Alex had completely forgotten that he was doing a practice match with his teacher; his gaze had sharpened, his heart sped up, and he could only see the Sensei's attacks as attempts on his life.

If he had been sparring with one of the younger students who were incapable of blocking his attacks, it was very possible he or she would have ended up seriously injured.

Since then, Alex avoided all practices with another person. He couldn't get attacked by somebody and fight back without feeling as though he was fighting for his life; he supposed he had been in too many dangerous situations for that. Alex stuck to attacking dummies after that.

It would really complete his image if Mongoose called him up on stage only to have him take down an SAS men. Alex would like to see MI6 explain _that_.

Luckily for him, Jackal began talking. "Today we are going to demonstrate the basics of self-defense," he said, voice carrying. "We are L-Unit. I am Jackal, the unit leader. That's Mongoose, the unit medic. Those two are Frog and Pelican."

Jeremy, who was unfortunately standing rather close to Alex, sniggered. "Real 'manly' names you got there," he said, making his friends laugh. He shot a smirk towards Brooke, who was watching with a raised eyebrow as he spoke in a high pitched voice. "I'm Frog, and that's Pelican! Oooh, watch out, we're really scary!"

Pelican stepped forward. He was a tall, thin and wiry man with cold eyes. "You should be scared," he said simply, his voice carrying a tinge of danger. "You wouldn't stand a chance against me, boy."

Alex looked at the man, a bit surprised. He _was_ fiercer than his name suggested.

Jeremy opened his mouth but Frog stepped forward as well. Shorter than his other unit-mates, he was nonetheless bulky and muscled. "You want to go, kid?" He asked, cracking his knuckles. Frog was only about nineteen or twenty, Alex guessed, young enough to take offense at the crack at his name. "You, me. Right now."

Jeremy raised his chin defiantly. Alex groaned - big mistake. "I could take you," Jeremy said, clearly overconfident in his abilities. Yes, the boy was athletic and strong, but he was no match against an SAS man.

Still, Jeremy stepped forward and squared off with Frog. The other members of L-Unit watched with amusement, Mongoose shaking his head slightly. Jeremy assumed a "ready position" seen in every karate movie and beckoned forward with his hands, obviously trying to look cool but coming off as young and childish.

Frog struck. He swiped Jeremy's legs out from under him with a spinning kick, and Jeremy fell hard to the ground. Frog towered over the boy with one foot on his chest. The entire thing had taken about thirty seconds, and Jeremy was suitably humiliated without any mean bruises on him. Alex was impressed and his estimation of L-Unit rose a few notches. "Want to try again, boy?"

Jeremy tried to scramble to his feet, but Frog wouldn't let up. The teenager turned his head to see his giggling classmates and flushed angrily. "Let me up," he ordered.

"What's the magic word?"

"Let me up!"

Frog pressed down on his foot just slightly so that Jeremy gasped for air. Alex noticed Mr. Bray looking anxiously at his student, but the man didn't intervene. "What's the magic word?" Frog asked again, his voice condescending.

"Please," grumbled Jeremy. Frog let the boy up, but Jeremy didn't stop there. He pointed at Pelican, obviously trying to gain back his reputation. "I can take you."

"Don't you learn from your mistakes?" Jackal asked incredulously, but Jeremy ignored him and charged at Pelican, trying to catch him by surprise.

Alex, along with the other 50-odd teenagers, winced as one as Pelican bent and used Jeremy's momentum to flip him onto his back. Jeremy lay, gaping for air like a fish, the wind knocked completely out of him.

Forget a few notches; Alex's estimation of L-Unit rocketed upward.

The kids exploded into laughter, and even Mr. Bray's lips twitched. Mongoose, the medic, bent over Jeremy and spoke to him softly, checking him over. When he was done, he held out a hand to help Jeremy up, but the boy batted it away and got up himself.

"First lesson," Jackal called out. "Know when you're beaten. Learn from your mistakes. Don't challenge somebody you know is better than you unless you have absolutely no choice."

Jeremy's face burned and Alex grinned in satisfaction.

He didn't get called on for the demonstration, and instead he sat on the floor with the others as L-Unit demonstrated basic moves. They were over-simplifying it and so he half-tuned them out, confident he knew the basic maneuvers they were teaching. However, he kept an eye on their technique, knowing that form didn't change regardless of the difficulty of the moves.

A rock rolled near Alex about half-way through. Alex looked at it curiously, noticing that there was a note messily attached on it with a shoestring. Was this the Sergeant's way of being subtle? He'd expected better from the man. He picked up the rock dubiously and, shielding it with his legs, took off the paper.

_A - the S gave me something to give to you after this. -Mr. B._

Alex struggled to hide his laugh as he glanced over at Mr. Bray, who was looking him intensely. Apparently the man had gotten over his fear of spies and decided to try out a few techniques. Though Alex knew Mr. Bray's note was anything but sneaky, he still appreciated the effort and showed no hint of his amusement as he nodded back and tore the note into tiny pieces.

Tom gave him a curious look, cocking an eyebrow, but Alex shook his head to tell him not to worry.

Finally, the Sergeant was passing on a message. Alex supposed it made sense, to give him information through the principal. When they had been in his office the other day, it would have been risky to tell Alex of the threat in front of Mr. Bray. Of course it would make sense for the Sergeant to give him news after. Reassured, Alex paid closer attention. Nobody would question Alex receiving a letter from Mr. Bray; they would just assume he was in trouble. It was about time! Did MI6 have more news on the threat? Had they developed a plan of defense? Was the threat annihilated and they could return home?

After the lecture, as they got into groups for fitness, Mr. Bray walked over to Alex. "I can't believe you would do that, Alex," he said reprovingly. Alex noticed how L-Unit's eyes all swung towards them at the sound of his name (though the majority of people were staring at him anyway).

"I'm sorry, Mr. Bray," Alex said, his voice unapologetic.

Mr. Bray tipped his head to the side, indicating a direction. "You'll have to come with me," he scolded. "The Sergeant is not going to be happy about this."

Maybe Mr. Bray was better at this spying thing then Alex had suspected. Alex hid a smirk and followed his teacher. Just before they reached the main office, Mr. Bray looked around cautiously and handed Alex a small letter. "Here," he said quietly. "I was told to give this to you."

Alex nodded a thanks and returned the man's shoelace. As his principal bent to lace it back through his shoes - Alex noticed that he too was forced to wear the SAS-issued boots - Alex flipped the letter over.

There was nothing to hint at who had sent it, just his initials typed in standard font: **AR.**

"Who is it from?" Mr. Bray asked, straightening up.

Alex shrugged. "I think it's from my guardian, Jack," he lied before looking up at his teacher with apparent gratitude. "Thank you, Mr. Bray. That was very sneaky of you."

Mr. Bray preened. "Even old men like me know some tricks," he said self-assuredly before glancing at the letter. "I'll leave you to read your letter. Return straight to fitness once you are done."

Alex waited until Mr. Bray walked away before booking it to the nearest loo. He locked himself in one of the stalls, sat gingerly on the closed toilet seat, and opened the letter cautiously; it might be a trap.

A piece of paper fluttered out. Alex grabbed it and read it eagerly:

_Cub,_

_We hear you're back at camp. What a surprise, Agent Double-o-nothing. Trying to intrude again? Thanks to you, we've been sent on a lovely trip to the middle of nowhere to gather information we probably don't need._

_Wolf says we might be returning before you leave, or we might not. Fox told us to write the letter - he says you'll do something stupid if you don't hear from us. Didn't know you got attached, kid. How sweet._

_We're writing to deliver a message: sit tight, don't do anything stupid, and don't take anything at face value. We know how you overreact, Cub. Don't. Fox also says to get yourself checked over by the doctors and to be alert._

_-Eagle_

"Sit tight?" Alex whispered to himself angrily. "Don't do anything stupid?" Alex was sick and tired of being treated like a teenager. It wasn't fair -

_Stop it,_ he scolded himself sternly. Maybe he _was_ acting like a teenager. Alex knew he had to think about it rationally. They obviously chose Eagle to write the letter because, out of the four men, he knew the least about the situation. His letter, if intercepted, wouldn't be thought about twice. There was the right level of condescension and irritation to make an interceptor think that 'Cub' wasn't anybody important. 'Camp' could refer to anything, most likely why Eagle hadn't signed it 'K-Unit.'

Now. He had to dissect it logically. _'We've been sent on a lovely trip to the middle of nowhere to gather information we probably don't need.'_ What did that mean? Either they were hinting that MI6 was trying to keep them away on purpose with pointless busy work, but Alex doubted that. Why would MI6 get involved in K-Unit's training? Clearly, Ben was working with his old unit again. Maybe they had sent him and K-Unit to find something? The note could mean that MI6 was looking in the wrong place, or maybe that they hadn't found anything.

Where was the _middle of nowhere_? Alex suspected this was an allusion to Scorpia, as they always based themselves in remote places, if only so neighbors wouldn't be able to hear the screams. While they had 'offices' in many populated places, the big headquarters were secluded. Maybe the sentence meant that K-Unit was tracking down the wrong headquarters?

Alex shook his head in frustration and moved on. This was maddeningly unhelpful.

Next paragraph. Alex re-read it:

_Wolf says we might be returning before you leave, or we might not. Fox told us to write the letter - he says you'll do something stupid if you don't hear from us. Didn't know you got attached, kid. How sweet._

Eagle's sarcastic commentary aside, that was worrying. Both Wolf and Fox's comments hinted that MI6 was deliberately keeping K-Unit away from Brecon Beacons, but _why_? Or, maybe it was worse, and Wolf/Fox suspected that they would be detained by Scorpia? There was no innocuous reason for why K-Unit would not return to camp while Alex was there.

Unless, Alex mused, that meant the threat was nearly gone. That was the ideal scenario, but unfortunately, he didn't think it was true. This letter was giving him a bad feeling.

Next paragraph.

_We're writing to deliver a message: sit tight, don't do anything stupid, and don't take anything at face value. We know how you overreact, Cub. Don't. Fox also says to get yourself checked over by the doctors and to be alert._

Although the orders to sit tight had rankled Alex at first, thinking it through, he recognized the warning. _Be alert_. This reaffirmed his thought that somebody was watching him. The orders to sit tight would make more sense then. But, why would they tell him to not take anything at face value? What was that supposed to mean?

Alex was about to rip up the message for security reasons when he noticed that the left bottom edge of the paper was splitting down the middle. Using his fingernail, Alex widened the gap until a small piece of paper fell out - K-Unit had written another message and hidden it between two sheets of paper.

It was only one sentence: _Don't alienate yourself from your classmates. - F_

Alex frowned at the message. Why would Fox deliberately write a separate message telling him to buddy it up with his schoolmates? It didn't make sense.

Still, Alex trusted Ben. He would follow his directions for now, if only until he learned more. Being kept in the dark was maddening.

Alex searched the letter and the envelope for more hidden messages, but after about fifteen minutes, he decided there was nothing there. He ripped up the message and the envelope and flushed it down the toilet.

A quick look at his watch told him that there was still thirty minutes left in fitness. Alex stretched his arms and jogged off to rejoin his classmates. He wouldn't turn down exercise; he couldn't afford to be out of shape.

When he returned, he found Tom and began doing pushups with him and his group of friends. _Don't alienate yourself from your classmates._ He could do that. Before MI6 had interfered in his life, Alex had been one of the most popular boys at his school; how hard could it be?

A quick glance at the group revealed that most of the boys had been on Alex's football team at one point or another. Perfect. "Hey, Tom," he whispered, loudly enough to catch the other boys' attention. "What do you say we play some football during our break today?"

Tom stopped doing pushups to look at Alex. "Sure," he said, though he was looking at Alex quizzically. Alex tried to give him a _'just go with it'_ look, and apparently his best friend understood because he turned to his other friends. "Hey, do you lot want to play football during our free time?"

"Man, I want to _sleep_ during my free time," said Jacob. He looked pretty bad, sweat slicking back his hair and wetting his face.

The boy next to him, Harrison, nudged Jacob. "Don't be a pussy," he said, smirking as he did the pushups effortlessly. "Play football with us."

"Yeah," Alex chimed in, sensing an opportunity. "It will be fun."

There was an awkward beat of hesitation as they assessed Alex as only teenagers can do before Jacob acquiesced. "Fine," he said, taking a break from pushups to wipe his face. "I'll play."


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: I am so very sorry. Could you believe me if I said I simply forgot about this fic? Bad author, I know. I have a separate email for FF, which I haven't checked in _weeks. _When I logged in yesterday, there was such an outpouring of reviews and favorited alerts and PMs that I immediately jumped to writing! You guys are the best. **

* * *

><p>The room was painted in a nondescript beige, the floors a dark brown wood. The room was tastefully decorated, if impersonal, with mahogany bookshelves and a matching desk set. A plant was ducked away in the corner, its slim fronds the only sign of life in the room - that is, except for a short, stout man sitting behind the desk, still enough to mistaken for a statue.<p>

The man placed his Armani loafer-clad feet on top of his desk, leaning back in his desk to read a report. An expression crossed his face that might have been glee if one were to squint closely and tilt their head. Light pooled on his prone figure from many yellow lights overhead.

Three knocks sounded - one short rap, two hard ones. Authoritative, but meek. The man sighed and spoke softly, his voice cutting through the brightly lit room. "Enter," he called, spinning a revolver around on his desk with a finger with the ease of somebody able to kill blindfolded.

The man that entered was tall and wiry, eyes cold. He bowed stiffly, the motions creaky. The act of subservience did not seem to fit his stature and the chilling sense of power he excluded. "I have a new report, _sir_," the man said, biting the last word.

The man in the chair smiled delightedly. "Oh, excellent," he said jovially, showing no hint of the madmen that lie beneath his expensive clothing. "I trust it was not difficult to get?"

The tall, blond man did not smile. "It never is," he said coolly.

The other man made a mental note to find out more about this man - his attitude was worrisome, at best. "Of course not," he said, holding out a well-manicured hand. If someone were to run into this man on the street, the overall impression he would leave was of an overeager, slightly naive business man. Nobody would remotely place him as a very dangerous man high in the ranks of Scorpia, somebody about to gain even more power. He smiled to himself at the thought. "Don't tease me, now," he scolded when the other man did not immediately hand over the report. "Give it to me."

"I would like confirmation that you are who you say you are," the taller man said crisply. One hand slipped to the gun concealed on his person.

He sighed exaggeratedly and said, "Oh, ruin my fun," he quite nearly pouted. "Fine. Codeword: Alpha-Juliet-Sierra-Six-Three-Two."

The other man clearly recognized the insult for what it was. Using such an easily identified and copyable codeword suggested that he did not think the other man worth his time. The Scorpia head had a wide array of codenames and words for different situations.

However, the taller man had no choice but to hand over the report. He must have known that he was close to death - it was only his continued usefulness that kept his heart beating.

The man behind the desk opened the report and skimmed it. His face broke out into an expression of great satisfaction. MI6 was busy chasing the wrong man, a placeholder head of Scorpia until this man took his place. "Excellent," he said, dismissing the operative with a wave of his hand. Once the man was gone, he resumed reading. "You'll be ours in no time, Alex Rider - I'm growing tired of waiting."

* * *

><p>Alex couldn't remember the last time he'd touched a football, but he was pleased to note that his talent had not completely disappeared.<p>

Only about five minutes after they'd begun playing a casual game of soccer in an empty field, a group of soldiers had come over and asked to join in.

It had rapidly turned out into all-out war between the teenagers and the SAS men.

"Cross!" Alex called, running up the field and preparing to receive a cross and hopefully score. Harrison had the ball and looked at him with slight hesitation, not wanting to lose the ball. Alex rolled his eyes; he had used to be the team captain! "Cross," Alex barked out, using his 'captain' voice. "Play #5."

Harrison looked up at the code word and, as if deciding Alex still knew what he was doing, evaded the SAS men about to steal the ball and passed a high cross to Alex.

Alex jumped and headed it past the goalie and the makeshift goal posts. "Yes!" Alex called, turning around to see Harrison running towards him, grinning.

"Nice one, Alex," he said, barely hesitating before slapping a high five. "Guess you practiced while you were in those hospitals, yeah?"

"Of course," Alex lied, glad to see at least one person was warming up towards him. "I always practice."

"Maybe this time you'll actually stay long enough to join the team again," Harrison called as he jogged away.

"Maybe," Alex agreed softly, taking his position as the game started up again. He could only hope.

* * *

><p><em>Alex tensed, face unyielding, as the small Chinese man trailed a blade softly down the prisoner's cheek. "Notice how the cut forms, Alex," Dr. Three said softly, catching a drop of blood on his finger. "It is deep enough to hurt, but the pain will not deter him from talking."<em>

_Alex did not reply. His dark brown eyes stared unseeingly over the prisoner's shoulder._

_Dr. Three tsked and twisted his knife in deeper. The prisoner cried out in gasping pain, and Alex very nearly flinched, only managing to keep himself still because he knew how Dr. Three viewed weakness. "Alex," Dr. Three said reprovingly, "Are you not enjoying my lessons?"_

"_P-please," the prisoner stuttered, looking up at Alex pleadingly. "Please!"_

_Dr. Three put down his knife and turned his back on the prisoner, busying himself with something on the table in the corner. Alex rubbed his fingers against his palm, trying to distance himself from the entire ordeal. However, when Dr. Three turned around holding a small black gun, his efforts to calm himself failed._

_He had seen many die before his eyes, but Alex still felt like a scared fourteen year old whenever it happened. Instead of shooting the prisoner, Dr. Three held the gun out to Alex. "Take it," he said coldly, "Or I'll shoot."_

_Alex was about to refuse when Dr. Three pointed the gun straight out of his head. He knew he was about five seconds from dying, and though he hated himself for it, he took the gun._

_Dr. Three smiled in satisfaction. "Excellent," he said, slicking back his dark hair. Alex debated turning around and shooting the evil bastard, but before he could move he felt a knife pressing into his back. "Now, Alex, you can make a choice. Either you can shoot this man, or you will die. Would you really die for a man you don't know?"_

_Alex bit his lip, but his hand was steady. Dr. Three burrowed the knife into his back and Alex cried out in pain despite himself._

_The prisoner was babbling through whitened lips, begging for mercy, and Alex felt his hand dropping - he wasn't a murderer! - but Dr. Three pushed the knife in deeper and the shot was fired before Alex could stop his finger._

"_No!" Alex cried out, gun shattering to the floor, but it was too late -_

"NO!" Alex yelled, twisting in bed, drenched in sweat. He leaned over the side of his bed and vomited at the memory, body shaking. The moment he became aware that he was making noise, he slapped a hand over his mouth, forcing his trembling limbs to still as he listened intently. Though he wanted nothing more than to take a shower, brush his teeth, and try to salvage a decent night's sleep, he stayed vigilant, hoping - praying - that nobody had heard him.

Alex lay perfectly still for roughly half an hour before he slipped out of bed and padded noiselessly outside. He was planning on taking a shower, but the cold night air felt so good against his feverish skin that he sat on the steps instead.

Pushing all thoughts of Dr. Three and his "lessons" at Scorpia aside, Alex focused on breathing deeply and calming his heart rate. His therapist had told him he should "reflect" on his nightmares, but Alex wasn't going to _willingly_ go over his mental anguish.

He cradled his head in his hand and tried to suppress the thought that he, Alex Rider, was a murderer. He was a killer. He had willingly taken life from others and for what, so that he could continue living a manipulated life?'

Inside, a boy sat up on his bed and looked at Alex's empty bed. He wrinkled his nose at the smell of vomit that was slowly filling the airless room.

What was Rider hiding? The boy had never been particularly close to Alex, but he had never hated him either. He knew that the other boy had been through some tough times in the past couple of years, what with his uncle's death and all of his 'illnesses.' He knew Alex was lying; it was obvious, as no single person could get sick that many times. Had he become tangled up in something dangerous?

* * *

><p>Wolf breathed heavily, wiping his mouth to clear the blood drying on his lip. He rubbed his tired eyes with the back of a dirt-encrusted hand and looked around him anxiously. Where was the rest of his unit? He was at the rendezvous point and they should be too. Every unit leader feared being the only one left alive. How could he live knowing he was a failure, that the death of those three other men - men that had put their lives in his hand - was his fault?<p>

His cellphone buzzed, and Wolf snatched it up. It was Fox, or at least Fox's phone. Knowing it could be a trap, he didn't say anything as he put the phone to his ear.

"Wolf," said Fox's voice. "Mothering us from afar?"

_Mothering_ was their key-word for "running late, but fine." Fox knew that Wolf harbored survivor's guilt - after all, wasn't he the only one of his family to survive the gas explosion? - and had suggested the key-word due to Wolf's tendency to worry over nothing.

"Of course not," Wolf snapped, transitioning instantly back into his tough persona. "Where the hell are you?"

"Don't turn," Fox answered instead. They were in an abandoned warehouse, Wolf hidden on the ground floor. If Fox was instructing him not to turn around, it meant that he was on the floor above but couldn't reach him due to a threat.

"How many?"

"Two, unaware." This meant that there were two guards very close to Wolf who didn't know where he was. "I have a hold on one."

Wolf ducked out of his hiding spot to spot the two men only about ten feet away from him. One was a red-head, with a puff of violent orange hair, and the other was bald. "Which one?"

"The ginger."

"On three, then?" They would have to shoot the men at the same time, so they died simultaneously and wouldn't attract attention.

"One, two - " Fox counted, and immediately both men shot.

The two guards crumpled in front of Wolf, and a few minutes later, Fox joined him in hiding. He was sweaty but unharmed. "Where are the others?"

Wolf shrugged, eyes surveying the warehouse intently. "Hopefully only late."

The two SAS men waited, guns ready, for their unit. Luckily, a few minutes later, Eagle appeared, followed closely by a bleeding Snake.

"We need to go," Snake said, pressing a pad from the medical kit he always carried to his leg. "Now."

Wolf nodded, not questioning the order. The four men made their way out using the exit strategy they had planned earlier. Once outside, in a car, and speeding away, Wolf glanced back. "What happened?"

Snake, who was trying to stem the blood on his leg, shook his head. "I have no idea. One second, Eagle and I were downloading the information, and the next I was getting shot at."

"I didn't see any faces," Eagle chimed in, looking at his friend anxiously. "Is your leg okay?"

"Just a flesh wound," Snake replied, though he was wincing.

"Did you get the information?" Fox asked, also looking at Snake with worry. The dark haired man nodded and passed over a small flash drive.

Wolf was inwardly relieved, but something didn't sit right with him. "The warehouse was empty as we left," he said, unconsciously speeding up as if to get as far away from possible from the place. "Somebody must have heard gunshots."

Eagle shrugged. "Maybe they figured it would be too hard to detain all of us."

"Maybe," Wolf muttered, but he didn't think it was that. Why hadn't somebody attempted to stop them?

* * *

><p>The next few days passed tortuously slowly for Alex.<p>

He was currently in the middle of running laps, and he absolutely _hated_ having to run at such a slow speed. It took more effort to breathe laboriously and add a tremble to his legs than it would have to just run at a normal speed. He lagged behind everyone else, coughed and wheezed, and generally tried to act as pathetic as possible.

The others laughed at him. The soldiers harassed him. He was the weakling, the one slower than everybody, the kid who struggled with pushups and crunches. It was mentally and physically exhausting to pretend to be so damn _bad_ all the time!

Finishing the run minutes behind everybody else, Alex bent at the waist and forced out deep breaths. The unit leader in charge looked at him disdainfully as he explained the next exercise. "This should put a smile on your little faces," he called out, a nasty smile crossing his own. "We're going to have a water balloon fight."

Murmurs broke out as the teenagers looked at each other excitedly. Alex rolled his eyes. Were they still so naïve to think a water balloon fight would be _fun?_

The unit leader raised a finger. "Don't look too happy yet," he said, smirking. _Thank you._ "I haven't explained the rules."

Alex shifted uneasily. He had a pretty good idea of where this was going, and he did not like the sound of it.

"Only we will get water balloons," the unit leader continued. He motioned to another in his unit, who brought forward a large plastic box. The unit leader reached in and pulled out a water balloon. Alex winced. They weren't filled up entirely, so they were small and hard. It would take a lot of force to break those things. "And we will throw them at you. You have to dodge, understand?"

"They aren't filled enough," one kid pointed out, clearly noticing the same thing. "They won't pop."

Faster than anybody, save Alex, saw coming, the unit leader pegged the boy with the balloon in his hand. Squealing in pain, the boy jumped back, slapping a hand to cover his arm where it had hit. The balloon had popped and covered him with a spray of water, but it also left a nasty looking red mark. "Would you look at that. I suppose they do pop, baby." The unit leader smiled maliciously. "You are under attack...as of _now_."

Alex ran.

He knew he would have to get hit by quite a few balloons for his charade to keep up, but he wanted to choose where they would land. After all, a balloon in the chest would hurt far more than a balloon in the arm or leg. He dodged a few that flew by his ear, used Tom for cover to avoid a green one aimed at his thigh, and ducked behind a tree. Alex peeked around. It was chaos. Kids were yelling and screaming and running as if the unit leader had opened fire with bullets instead of balloons. Instead of, say, taking cover like reasonable people, they were running back and forth _in plain sight_ and even stopping to argue with the SAS men.

"Don't throw it so hard!" One boy whined, turning and inadvertently placing himself in the line of fire. "My dad's a doctor, this can't be good for us - ow!" Three balloons hit him at once, and the boy had to blink back tears. Alex winced in sympathy, all though it was the boy's own bloody fault. They had no survival instict at all. Even before he was officially recruited for MI6, Alex could have done better than this!

_Ian had trained you for fourteen years, then_, Alex pointed out to himself. He saw a blue one heading his way and accidentally-on-purpose stumbled into its path so that it grazed his hip. "Ow!" Alex howled, dropping to one knee. "Ow, that hurt!"

"Stop being such a pussy," said Jeremy, who was soaking wet and looked ready for murder. "If I ever get my hands on that one..."

Alex looked up to see that L-Unit had joined the fun. They were looking entirely too cheerful as they pegged children with balloons. Jeremy picked up one of the many balloons that had fallen without bursting and gave a vengeful glare to Pelican. Alex groaned in advance and winced again when the teenager tried to get Pelican and received two balloons squarely in the gut as a reward. _Idiot._

Glancing around him, Alex moved stealthily to the next tree. It was odd, but he could almost sense the balloons before they hit him. Scorpia had locked him up in a dark room for an indeterminable amount of time and hidden agents had amused themselves by throwing things at him. Alex shuddered at the memory. Good reflexes were hardly benefits to justify that torture.

When they weren't inventing new ways to hone children into soldiers, the SAS men were tormenting them verbally. Alex received a far amount of jostling and insulting. The teachers didn't seem inclined to rescue him, either. They stayed very far away from Alex. His history teacher gave little squeaks every time he walked by. It was infuriating.

One day, Mr. Bray motioned him over. Alex was covered in dirt, and his body was aching - they had been practicing climbing trees, and Alex had fallen off on purpose. That was one thing Alex had been practicing well: falling down. He had mastered the techniques that had let him hit the ground hard without too much injury.

Although he just wanted to take a shower, Alex wiped his face with a towel and walked over to Mr. Bray.

"Alex," the principal said. "Can we talk?"

He looked at the older man warily and responded, "Sure."

They walked farther away. "The thing is, Alex," Mr. Bray began heavily. He cracked his knuckles. "I don't want to offend you…but we really have to know, you understand…" Alex furrowed his eyebrows and Mr. Bray continued, "Are you being abused?"

"No!" Alex said vehemently. Had he been giving off that vibe? He had to be more careful. "No, Mr. Bray, why would you even ask me that?"

Mr. Bray flushed but he soldiered on. "Are you being forced into…service?"

Alex stared Mr. Bray directly in the eye. "No," he lied smoothly.

Mr. Bray turned and stared at where the rest of the teachers had congregated and were looking at them curiously. "You're a _child_," Mr. Bray pointed out. "Alex, it is my job to look after children. Why would the government need a teenager?"

Alex smiled coldly. "I'm sure they have their reasons."

"Please, just help me understand," the teacher continued. It was strange, the way Mr. Bray was speaking to Alex. It was as if they were equals, a feeling that Alex was not used to with teachers from his school. "I mean, couldn't this all wait until you're old enough? Is this even _legal_?"

"The government makes its own laws," Alex said, sighing. "Listen, Mr. Bray, thank you for looking after me - but there's not much I can say about all of this."

"You'd have to kill me, eh?" Mr. Bray asked. Alex was surprised to see a wry smile cross his teacher's face. Maybe the man was a good sort after all. "But Alex, I still need to get this sorted out. How do I treat you? We need to talk to that big man in charge - the Sergeant. What's his name, anyway?"

Alex shrugged, both in resignation and in answer to the question. "Your guess is as good as mine," he replied as the two began walking towards the Sergeant's office. He was mentally concocting a plan, however. How much was he supposed to trust Mr. Bray? Would the Sergeant give him classified information? What about the rest of the teachers? It was a huge security risk. "Mr. Bray," Alex asked as a thought occured to him. "How much, exactly, do the other teachers know?"

"They know that you're a target, and that's it," came the surprising answer. Okay. Alex could work with that. He just had to keep playing pathetic until he received more information. He was also supposed to be making friends, but Fox clearly hadn't been around teenagers in years. They didn't 'make friends' easily over old grudges.

Inside, Mr. Bray knocked briskly on the door of the Sergeant. The Sergeant's gruff voice told them to enter, and they did, albeit a bit apprehensively. Alex quickly assessed the man's face when he walked in. Exhaustion. Sheer exhaustion. What could be making the Sergeant look like _that_?

"What?"

"It's just, the situation with Alex," Mr. Bray began explaining in a hesitant voice. "What are the...well...the protocols?"

The Sergeant looked as if he wanted to hit something. "Use your discretion," he gritted out. "Don't tell anyone. Treat him as a problem kid. Rider, keep looking like a piece of shit." Alex couldn't help but grin at that. Somebody was appreciating his efforts.

"Sir, Alex is a child," Mr. Bray continued. Alex closed his eyes briefly. He did not need Mr. Bray trying to look after him in some misguided attempt. "Surely you cannot expect him to deal with this threat on his own."

The Sergeant snorted. "Rider can look after himself. Now, I have a message for Rider here from his guardian. Could you leave us alone?"

Mr. Bray gave Alex a measured look and reluctantly left the two alone.

The Sergeant leaned forward. "I don't think I have to explain to you how important it is to keep to yourself," he said coldly, voice forceful. "Running to your little protector won't do jack shit, understand, Rider?"

"I didn't ask him to do this!" Alex protested. Did the Sergeant think he was an idiot? "If you had just kept it a secret like you lot promised, it would be a lot easier!"

"Stop whining!" The Sergeant said harshly. He pinched his nose with two fingers and exhaled. "Okay, Rider, I'm going to give it to you straight. We have no bloody idea who the threat is, or what they want. Your job is to keep yourself safe."

They didn't know anything? Anything at all? Knowing MI6, Alex highly doubted that, but it was very likely that had chosen not to share any information with the SAS. That was typical behavior for Jones and Blunt, preferring to keep all the cards in one hand.

"Now sod off," said the older man. "We're going to be introducing something new soon to give you more protection."

_If only I had decided to go to a safe house, _Alex groaned to himself. He resisted the urge to ask what the new 'thing' would be, as the Sergeant didn't look in the divulgatory mood. Instead, he mumbled a dissatisfied "Yes, sir," and left.

How was he supposed to 'survive' if nobody was giving him any tools to do so?

* * *

><p>The Sergeant steepled his fingers in front of him as he pondered what to do with Cub. Yes, the gesture was clichéd, but the man had always loved action films.<p>

The Sergeant - whose first name was Paul - had received instructions from MI6 for dealing with the boy. Of course those instructions had been simple: protect him, and don't distinguish him from the rest of the students.

However, Paul knew that there was a Scorpia agent after Cub, and it didn't sit right with him to leave the boy defenseless. The last time he'd been here, he had been a scared fourteen year old, but Cub had still managed to distinguish himself as quick-thinking, clever, and formidable. From his file, Paul had surmised that this boy was quite frankly dangerous. However, the last major training he had received had been with Scorpia, which meant that the agent after Cub probably knew his fighting style.

Paul wasn't sure that Cub knew how to shoot a gun or withstand interrogation, but he did know that if Cub managed to get himself captured (and since he was a little twerp who stuck his nose into everything, it was likely that he was going to get himself captured some day or another), he would need those skills. Paul wasn't too comfortable going against MI6, as Blunt personally oversaw funding for his SAS program, but he couldn't leave the brat without any help. Cub had to pretend to be helpless in order to keep his cover a secret, but he couldn't afford to get lax. He needed some kind of training.

The order had come in from MI6 that morning to section the teenagers into units. Cub had been assigned to L-Unit, for whatever reason. Perhaps because 'L' came directly after 'K'? It didn't matter. L-Unit wasn't his best unit, but they were reliable. He knew all of the members well. If one of them was a Scorpia agent, then he would have infiltrated months ago, and Paul surely would have noticed. Still, he pulled up their unit information and sent it to Mrs. Jones. MI6 could run background checks like nobody's business. If the reply came that L-Unit was clear, perhaps Paul would take it upon himself to spill the beans about Cub.

* * *

><p>His body had finally healed, and Alex was finally beginning to get antsy. He knew there was a threat hanging over his head - hanging over all of their heads - and entertaining himself with making friends was not good enough for him.<p>

Sure, a few of his classmates were beginning to warm up to him, but Alex itched with the determination to annihilate the threat. Why was he just sitting here? The Sergeant hadn't contacted him after their little chat. If the letter from K-Unit hadn't arrived, he would have felt utterly abandoned.

He had been at Brecon Beacon's for about a week when the new change he had been expecting was announced.

Alex gathered with the rest of his classmates outside the mess hall as the Sergeant paced up and down in front of them. The man looked worried, something that did not sit well with Alex. Clearly, the threat was growing.

However, the announcement wasn't to order new security measures or explain that they were all in danger. "I have decided that you lot have no sense of comradeship," the Sergeant bellowed, making Alex close his eyes briefly in disappointment. Now what was he on about? Comradeship? That was not at all what Alex had expected to hear, though he supposed it fit with K-Unit's order to make friends with his classmates. "You are to be placed into groups and assigned a unit who will teach you for the next couple of days, understood?"

How was this building comradeship? Alex had a sneaking suspicion that the changes were for an entirely different reason, but he couldn't put his finger on it. He waited for his assignment with a bit of trepidation. Was he going to be the only one left behind and have to be alone with a unit?

It was the opposite. Alex's old unit of Jeremy, Brooke, and the Mud Girl as he was now calling her, was merged with Tom's old unit. Alex wrinkled his nose. Jeremy, Tom and him in the same group. Not the mention the girls. He'd rather train alone.

"This should be fun," Tom whispered from beside him. "A fiver that Jeremy'll embarrass himself at once a day."

"You're on, I bet twice a day," Alex said, listening for his unit assignment. What if K-Unit returned?

He was assigned L-Unit. Of course. Clearly, some higher power was watching him and putting all the coincidences in one group, Alex thought sarcastically before he realized something.

Was this a not-so-subtle reminder from MI6 that somebody was watching him?

Damn, that's good, Alex thought to himself with a bit of grudging respect. Maybe MI6 hadn't completely abandoned him after all, though it was a bit rankling that they were watching him without making contact. It was also true that if MI6 was watching him that closely, others were too. Alex resolved to be more careful. He had been growing a little bit sloppy over the past couple of days; now he had to be on point.

They were ordered to break into their new groups, and Alex approached L-Unit slowly. They looked up when he arrived with Tom trailing behind him. "Alex, right?" The leader, Jackal, said in recognition.

He nodded warily. "That's me."

Jackal appraised him intently, but he only commented, "What a coincidence."

Alex nodded, not liking the way the other man was staring at him. His gaze was almost too sharp, too calculating, almost as if Jackal was measuring his potential. Was it possible they had been informed of the situation?

However, Mongoose spoke up, breaking Jackal's assessment. "And who are you?" He said to Tom.

Tom introduced himself and immediately fell into an easy chatter about the martial arts demonstration with Pelican. He had always been able to communicate with anybody, Alex mused, as he looked around for the rest of their group.

He spotted Jeremy arguing loudly with Mr. Bray a few feet away. Alex's lips quirked as he remembered the other boy's humiliation; no wonder he didn't want to be in contact with L-Unit. The girls were talking in low tones to the right, glancing at Mongoose and dissolving into giggles - he didn't want to know why. As was habit, he glanced around to see where Cameron was. The boy had a nasty habit of sneaking up on Alex.

He nudged Tom. "Where's Cameron?"

Tom broke off from his conversation and looked around him dismissively. "Probably terrorizing somebody," he said, rolling his eyes before turning back to Pelican. "You know, since you're part of our unit, you should teach us how to do that thing, the flippy thing, that you did to Jeremy? That was brilliant - "

" - what do you mean, terrorizing somebody?" Mongoose broke in, a frown crossing his young features. He looked pointedly at Alex. "Is Cameron a bully?"

Why had he told the man he was bullied? The last thing Alex needed was an SAS man to try to protect him from bullies. Alex shook his head vehemently and replied, "No, Cameron's all talk."

"Not always," chimed in Brooke, who had clearly been listening in. "Remember poor Jimmy Mackerett?"

Alex shook his head - he couldn't place the name - but Tom nodded in acknowledgement. "Yeah, he left school a while ago, didn't he?"

"I don't remember, what happened?" asked Alex.

Brooke rolled her eyes at him. "You wouldn't know, since you were 'sick', Rider," she replied, putting air quotes around 'sick.' "Cameron knocked Jimmy around a bit and his parents yanked him from school."

Mongoose's eyes narrowed. Perhaps it was the child he'd mentioned a few days ago, or maybe he was naturally compassionate, but Alex already knew the SAS man would be one to get upset. The other men didn't look particularly troubled, as bullying was a common occurrence in schools. "What happened to Cameron?"

Brooke shrugged and twirled a strand of hair between her fingers. "Nothing much," she said, shrugging. "Got detention a few times, I reckon."

"That's hardly fair."

Jackal, who had been watching the proceedings silently, spoke up now and nudged Mongoose with his shoulder. "C'mon, man, don't do this to me," he said, shaking his head. "You've been a father for a month, you've hardly met the kid. Don't turn into a softy on me, or I'll have to rename you 'Teddy Bear.'"

Tom laughed with the other SAS men, and Alex cracked a smirk at that. He wasn't paying too much attention to their information about Cameron, however. He had been busy watching the Sergeant talk quietly with a small, well-dressed man in a grey suit that was out of place in Brecon Beacons. The Sergeant, a large, normally stoic sort of man, had been running his hand through his short buzz haircut in agitation as they talked. What would make the Sergeant show agitation in public?

He watched curiously as the man slipped an envelope to the Sergeant, who tucked it away in his pocket. What was in that envelope? He knew that logically it could be anything, from a personal letter to electricity bills, but he couldn't help but think it was about Scorpia. The more Alex was kept out of the loop, the more he itched to know what was happening.

The man said something quietly and the Sergeant nodded decisively before turning to face the crowd of kids and SAS members. "Oi, listen up, you lot," he yelled harshly. By now, the teenagers were well aware that they had to shut up when the Sergeant yelled, and a hush settled over them. "Instead of fitness, you get your free time now, and in an hour you are to meet back here, understood?"

Excited nods.

"Dismissed."

Alex followed Tom to go back to the barracks, but Jackal called out to him as he was about to leave. "Hey, Alex," Jackal said, holding out what appeared to be a wallet. "I think you forgot this."

Alex knew that his wallet was locked inside his trunk, and the only money on his person was twenty pounds stuffed down the side of his boots. "I don't think it's mine, thanks," he replied, turning away.

Jackal's voice was oddly insistent. "It has your initials on it," he said, brandishing the wallet. "Just come back and check, yeah?"

Alex wasn't stupid. He knew L-Unit wanted to talk to him. Resigned, he bid goodbye to Tom and trudged back towards the men. "What do you want?"

"To give you your wallet," Jackal said innocently, holding out the leather wallet. It was empty and definitely not Alex's.

Alex gave Jackal an irritated look. "I'm not slow," he said, rolling his eyes. "What do you want to talk to me about?"

"You have some brains in you, kid," Jackal said sarcastically before inclining his head to the left. "Come with us for a bit, we want to talk to you."

As Alex followed them, he surveyed his surroundings intently. What if it was a trap? He knew nothing about this men, not really. He geared himself to fight, watching how they walked - any information would be helpful if he had to fight for his escape.

However, they stopped right outside a small unit housing. "This Cameron brat," Jackal said without preamble, "Has he knocked you around?"

Alex hadn't been expecting this, but he shook his head tiredly and replied, "No," turning to go.

Frog, surprisingly enough, stopped him. "You're not going anywhere, kid," he said, voice steely. "Mongoose told us about your back."

Damn it! Just when he thought he had escaped having to be looked after by K-Unit, another unit stepped in to badger him. "My back is fine," Alex said curtly. He didn't need a unit to keep an eye on him.

With their arms crossed and steely looks glinting out of their eyes, the unit could have passed for hit men. "I highly doubt that," Frog said, shaking his head.

"Why do you care?"

"Look, kid, I was bullied a lil' bit in high school - it's nothing to be ashamed about," Frog said, shrugging. "And normally I'd say you could take of yourself, but clearly you can't."

"We don't like people beating on children," Jackal added, shrugging. "It's not our place to baby you, God no, but if you are as bad as Mongoose said, something's wrong."

Alex bit his lip as he tried to decide what to do. He couldn't lie to them and tell them he hadn't been bullied - that would raise dangerous questions of where, exactly, he managed to acquire scars. They had apparently taken a liking to him and were his group leaders. It was better to continue an old lie than start something new.

Alex sighed and ducked his head, forcing himself to flush slightly. "I guess," he murmured. He had played 'weak' so many times that it wasn't difficult for him to change his body language, fidget a little bit, and appear to L-Unit as if he was harmless. "It stopped recently, though."

"Will you let me examine you, Alex?" Mongoose asked, obviously trying to sound coaxing and friendly. The voice didn't fit with his tough exterior, and Alex resisted the urge to raise a skeptical eyebrow.

Unbidden, the thought that Fox had ordered him to get checked over by doctors flashed through Alex's mind. He dismissed it in the next second. Sure, he could explain a few scars and bruises off due to bullying, but what about a bullet wound? Badly healed cuts from knives? No normal kid would have a body marred like that.

Instead, he acted embarrassed and said, "Um, it's fine, I had a doctor's appointment before this anyway."

This seemed to mollify the team medic, who stepped slightly back.

Jackal, however, was still frowning. "We'll be keeping an eye on you, kid," he confirmed Alex's worries, "Make sure that Cameron doesn't hurt you."

"Thanks," Alex said sourly.

They appeared not to notice his tone - or maybe they were ignoring him - and Jackal gave him a nod. "Off with you, then. We're not babysitters."

"Could'a fooled me," mumbled Alex as he jogged away.

As he approached the barracks, his steps slowed. He didn't want to return to the rest of his classmates. Instead, he turned and began walking in a random direction, mulling things over.

Maybe it was good that a unit was watching him closely. Nobody would question the scrutiny - after all, wasn't it expected that Alex Rider would have minders? - and it could work to his advantage. Perhaps having a unit on his side would be beneficial.

Unless, of course, the Scorpia agent was hiding in L-Unit.

Damn, MI6 better get in touch with him soon. He didn't like floundering like this, not knowing what to do or how to act or whom to trust.


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: Just a note regarding consistency and canon-ness: I'm afraid I haven't read the entire series over recently, so most of the plot points are based on my memory. I left Jack in the story because she has a small role and I hated that she died. If you see a plot point that belongs in the story that I forgot (i.e. **_Ryuubi Maelstrom_** reminded me that Alex burned his back), then please help me out! **

**That being said, enjoy. Criticism, advice, and all manners of reviews are accepted and appreciated. I don't own anything you recognize from elsewhere. **

* * *

><p>Mongoose looked at the group of teenagers assembled in front of them and sighed. He was not looking forward to this. Of course, neither was anybody else in the group. L-Unit had recently returned from an operation, and babysitting a bunch of obnoxious kids, well, it sucked.<p>

Especially since Mongoose wanted to be at home with his kid. Despite himself, Mongoose found himself softening at the thought of little Ryan. His wife, Sarah, had sent him plenty of pictures, and they had even used Skype. While Jackal kept ribbing Mongoose about becoming a pussy, he didn't care. What baby wanted a tough soldier as a dad? When he returned for leave, he would make sure Ryan knew that underneath his hard exterior, he too could be a father.

Mongoose's eyes swung towards Alex. He didn't know the kid, not really, but Mongoose wasn't a huge fan of bullying. Hazing was rampant in the SAS, but it was expected and nobody really took it too far. Normally Mongoose wouldn't have interfered, but the sight of the kid's back still scared him a little. He hadn't really gotten a good glance, but he'd definitely seen a large scar and the edge of a nasty looking burn, or something like that. Alex had instinctively twisted to hide himself, but what Mongoose had seen worried him. Frog had been bullied in school, and he had a few "battle scars" to show for it, but they were small and innocuous. Alex had scars that looked like they came from abuse, and Mongoose didn't like them at all.

The rest of the unit thought he was a bit mental for caring about this kid, but Mongoose shrugged that off. Jackal was surprisingly easy to persuade into looking after Alex. It was only for a couple of weeks anyway. And, he was a medic. He couldn't see somebody on his side injured without wanting to take care of them. That's all it really was.

Beside him, Jackal glowered at the eight teenagers. "This is bull," he muttered for the fourth time. "I didn't sign up to be a babysitter."

Pelican's smile was deadly. "At least we don't have to worry about hurting their feelings or anything," he pointed out, looking entirely too pleased at the thought. "If they irritate us, we'll just make them do something miserable. Remember when we were recruits?"

As one, they shuddered.

"Point taken," Jackal muttered back. He cleared his throat and stepped forward. "Oi, you lot, listen up!" The kids lasped into silence, though Mongoose noticed the sneer that was directed towards them from Jeremy. Of course they had the trouble-maker and the bullied in the same group. Could this get any more reality-television? "Today we're going to be learning how to navigate our way through the forest."

They didn't look pleased with that idea. Smart kids.

"You will get the option of one survival tool," Mongoose said, motioning behind him to a table full of supplies. "Pick carefully."

"We will be watching," said Pelican next. He shot a particularly venomous look towards Jeremy, and Mongoose thought, not for the first time, that the man deserved a name like 'Adder' or 'Cobra.' Hell, even Snake would do, though apparently that was somebody in K-Unit. "Don't even think about stealing."

Frog finished them out. "You will be driven to somewhere in the woods and expected to complete some tasks. If you miss dinner, then...you'll be mighty hungry."

One of the girls looked affronted. "That's hardly fair," she said. "You're not even giving us a map. What if it takes an hour to get back, and we only have thirty minutes?"

Jackal pinned her under a stern glare, though they all knew she had a point. It didn't matter. They didn't have to be logical in a training exercise. Attacks were never conveniently scheduled or located. "Then you better walk quickly," he barked, and the girl subsided.

L-Unit stepped aside to let the teenagers at the supplies. Mongoose leaned forward curiously to see what Alex would do. 

* * *

><p>Alex was currently cursing the ground that the Sergeant lived on. He had just finished cursing Scorpia, MI6, Blunt and Mrs. Jones, so the Sergeant was the next logical target. After he was done with the man, he'd move on to his classmates.<p>

The items on the table were all fairly basic. There was rope, a compass, a knife, a list of dangerous plants, a water bottle, matches, a whistle and a flashlight. It was going to be difficult to choose which one to take. Alex was leaning towards taking the knife. They most likely weren't going to stray past dark, so a flashlight wasn't necessary. Rope, compasses, water bottles and whistles were all useful, but it was the knife and the matches that they would need in most situations. Alex knew how to start a fire without matches, but should he display that amount of knowledge? They might not even need the knife on the other hand.

"I say we take the water bottle," said Mud Girl, reaching for it.

"Don't be daft," Tom immediately snapped. "What if we need to start a fire? Fat lot of good a water bottle would do us."

"If we all die of thirst, matches won't help us either," sniped back the girl.

"It's not even filled," said another girl. "I doubt they'd give us water."

Alex saw Jackal looking disappointed and knew that there was no chance in hell they would have gotten water.

Jeremy stepped up to the table, clearly intending to take the position of leader. "I doubt we need this list of plants," he said, pushing it and the water bottle to the other end of the table.

Alex personally thought the list would be useful for an extended stay, though not necessarily their trip today. While Jeremy was debating loudly the merits of rope over a compass, Alex reached out and snagged the list. Most of the plants were familiar, but a few he didn't know. He tried to quickly memorize the pictures. Who knew if he'd ever be stuck in this side of the world again?

"We're not taking that, Rider, keep up," snapped Jeremy when he saw what Alex was doing.

Alex put it back on the table. "Excuse me if I want to know what plants may kill us, even if we aren't taking it along."

"Good idea," said Tom, shooting a glare at Jeremy. He grabbed the list and scanned it over as well.

While the attention was on them, Alex said, "I think we should go for the knife."

"We might not even need to cut things."

"Yeah, but in case we do, it'll be more helpful," he argued back.

Brooke held up the matches. "And if we have to make a fire? What are you planning, to rub two sticks together?"

Alex actually carried matches in a small ziploc bag pinned to the inside of his shirt, but he wasn't about to tell her that. "What if we don't need to make a fire, then the matches will be useless."

Tom turned to the amused looking unit. "What's our task?"

Jackal waggled a finger in the most annoying way. "Many times on missions you are stuck in these types of scenarios," he lectured. This was true, but it wasn't as if these kids would be going on any missions at all. Alex still did not see the point of sending everybody to training camp. It would be a much more reasonable to send everybody to safe houses, but when did MI6 listen to a teenager? "You have a minute to decide."

"Knife," Alex said firmly.

"Matches," said Brooke just as firmly, which meant that Jeremy had to agree because he was a spineless little twat who just wanted to get with Brooke. This obviously meant that Tom had to agree with Alex, and the four of them glared at each other for a few seconds.

"Ten seconds."

Alex reached out to grab a knife, but Brooke got to the matches before him. She held them up triumphantly.

"I suppose that's good," said Jackal. "As your first task is to make a fire."

Jeremy shot Alex a triumphant look.

Jackal continued, voice light. "I just wonder where you'll get the wood."

Which is exactly why a knife would be helpful. Alex gave her another glare as they all clambered into a large van and set off. It took about fifteen minutes to get there, which could mean anywhere from 30 to 60 minutes to walk back. This would not be an enjoyable exercise.

A thought struck Alex. "You're going to be there the whole time, right?" Alex asked the unit members, ignoring the derisive chuckle from Jeremy. "You're not going to abandon us, are you?" He could just picture it. Eight defenseless teenagers wandering through the woods, too absorbed in their arguments to see the assassin taking careful aim...

Jackal rolled his eyes. "We're not here to babysit you," he barked.

A smirk crossed Pelican's face. "But we will be there," he said softly. "You just won't be able to see us."

Alex immediately resolved to spot them. He was glad that they would be following him, though. It would be his luck to get killed on a stupid exercise like this.

Unloading from the bus, the eight of them stood together in a group. "Your goal is to find the clearing marked with a red flag," said Jackal. "Light a fire. We will return once you are finished to give you the next objective."

"Close your eyes and count to ten," Frog said sharply, and they obeyed - even though Alex didn't entirely close his eyes. He heard a rustle to his left, knew the unit had gone anywhere other than the left, and when he opened his eyes again the four of them were gone.

Alex scanned the trees. Even though L-Unit seemed relatively young compared to the rest of the units, they wouldn't make a rookie mistake like allowing a rustle to give away their position. It was more likely that they stepped on the leaves, took off up a tree, and went the opposite direction. He couldn't spot them yet, but he was going to try his hardest.

"We have to find a clearing?" Tom said, looking around him with a wrinkled nose. "Are they bat-shit insane? It could be anywhere, this place is huge."

"Do you think other groups are in the same forest?" Brooke said. "Maybe we could help each other."

"There's no guarantee that we'll find anyone," Alex said, "or that they'll have the same mission. We should just start walking."

Jeremy sneered. "What do you know, Rider?"

Alex resisted the urge to hit the boy. He quite honestly did not know what Jeremy's problem was with him. While the rest of the school ignored him the majority of the time, Jeremy and Cameron went out of their ways to torment Alex. "What, do you have a better idea?" Alex snapped back aggressively.

Jeremy didn't, and after a few minutes of sulking he started walking into the forest. The rest trailed obediently after.

Tom gave an exasperated look over his shoulder to Alex before he smiled and walked up to one of the girls. "Hi, I'm Tom," he introduced himself. "What's your name again? Sorry, I'm pants with names."

The girl smiled shyly. "Miranda."

"I'm Amelia," said Mud Girl without prompting.

The third girl introduced herself as Jessica, and the unnamed boy was Colin. Alex already could tell that those four were not the dominant forces in the group.

As they walked, Alex kept looking for L-Unit without trying to be too obvious. They had melted into thin air, or so it appeared. That was strange, as the forest wasn't particularly dense. The floor was covered with a soft covering of leaves and grass, and there weren't too many bushes. It would be hard for four large men to not only conceal themselves, but also follow the teenagers. They were good, to say the least.

When he couldn't immediately spot them, Alex turned his attention to finding a clearing. Squinting low at the ground, he tried to look straight through the trees for any thinning and listened for the sound of running water. To his left, it looked as if the trees became considerably less dense, and he was willing to bet the clearing was that way. How was he supposed to get his classmates to follow him?

Alex made his way to the left side of the group. Maybe if he kept slowly walking left, they would follow him? He tried it for a few minutes, but all that happened was that they separated from him. Jogging to catch up, he concocted a new plan. Walking to the left of Jeremy, he stumbled and slammed into the boy, knocking him down. "I'm sorry!" Alex cried, jumping up.

"What the hell, Rider?" Jeremy immediately replied, lunging at Alex. Alex ran towards where he thought the clearing would be, and Jeremy lay chase. "Where are you going, idiot?"

Alex let himself fall a few feet away from where he could see the clearing. "Stop, don't hurt me, it was an accident," he gasped out, holding his hands in front of his face protectively.

Through his fingers, Alex saw Jeremy gearing to hit him, and he tensed up. "Don't hit him," said one of the girls. "God, Jeremy. Calm down."

"Boys," snorted another.

Alex grinned to himself as Jeremy left him alone. Taking Tom's offered hand, he hoisted himself up. "Sorry, Jeremy," he said contritely.

Jeremy sneered and they kept walking.

A few minutes in, they stumbled into a clearing. In the middle, there was a red flag with a picture of fire on it. Clearly, that was where they were supposed to build their fire. On the way there, Alex had been keeping an eye out for wood they could gather, and he found next to none. Either the SAS men had deliberately picked up wood just to be obnoxious, or that was standard in this part of Wales - Alex wasn't familiar with the geography, so he couldn't say for sure. In both cases, that would make building a fire difficult. There had been a few large logs and sticks where a knife would have been helpful, but clearly that was out.

"Does anybody know how to build a fire?" Tom asked, looking around him.

"Just pile some wood and light it," answered the other boy, Colin.

I hope I am never abandoned in the forest with these idiots for an extended period of time. Alex smiled tightly. "I'm not sure that's going to work."

"You need a pyramid," said Miranda, who thankfully seemed knowledgeable about this subject. "My dad and I go camping."

Alex mentally cheered. "So you know how to make a fire?"

Miranda fidgeted with her shirt. "Well...no," she admitted. "Dad always makes it while I watch. But you definitely need a pyramid. And leaves and stuff."

He could work with that. He held his hands out to indicate a length of about a foot. "Wood about this long?"

Miranda clearly wasn't sure, but she nodded anyway.

"We should separate," Alex continued. He had decided to take charge for a short while, if only because they wouldn't get things done otherwise. "Pairs or trios or something. Come back in five minutes with wood."

Jeremy immediately inched towards Brooke, who consequently moved towards her friend. "We'll stay here," she said hastily, "In case somebody is lost, just yell."

Tom and Alex shared a smile, and they started walking away. The other two boys followed them, which defeated the purpose of splitting up, but Alex didn't want to get into a fight. Tom walked a little faster, and when Alex caught up, lowered his voice to whisper, "How long d'you reckon we'll stay here?"

Alex shrugged, bending down to pick up a few sticks. "A couple days, a week? I dunno."

Tom picked up a pine cone and weighed it in his hands as if debating whether or not he should chuck it at Jeremy. "I thought they would have told you."

He smiled bitterly. "They haven't told me anything."

"Then what are you supposed to be doing here?"

"Making friends."

Tom gave him a funny look and lobbed the pine cone over his shoulder. A shout came from the two boys, but he ignored them. "Funny."

Alex chuckled softly. "I'm not kidding."

"That's stupid," said Tom. "You have plenty of friends."

Alex raised an eyebrow. "Are you blind?"

"I mean, it's beyond me why anybody would want to be friends with you, but plenty of people still like you," Tom said, giving Alex a grin. "We were just told to leave you alone."

Alex stopped. "You were what?"

"When you disappeared the first time, you know, when Ian died, this weird looking guy came in and told us that he was your psychiatrist or some such shit, and we should leave you alone because you were dealing badly with death," Tom said, as if that were common knowledge. "I mean, I knew it was bullshit, but the teachers yelled at us if we talked about you or pestered you so everyone just sort of left you alone."

"What the fuck?" Alex whispered harshly, clenching his fists. He didn't have a psychiatrist. This smelled heavily of MI6, and he was not pleased. Why the fuck would they tell everybody to leave him alone? Thinking back on his school experience, that explained a lot, actually. A few jerks liked to harass him about being a druggie, some others thought he was a weakling, but most people just pretended he didn't exist. Why would MI6 - or anybody - want his schoolmates to leave him alone? The thought of all the months he spent thinking everybody hated him made Alex want to punch something. He was struggling to keep his composure. He could have had a perfectly normal school life, but no, MI6 had to interfere again -

"Calm down," Tom said worriedly, placing a hand on Alex's shoulders. Alex flinched him off. "Remember, those guys are watching, calm down - "

Alex took a deep shuddering breath, wrestled his anger into a small ball, and shoved it down. He smiled coldly. "I was not aware of that."

"Shit," Tom said. They walked silently for a few seconds. "Gonna go fuck someone up?"

"Exactly," said Alex, and left it at that. 

* * *

><p>Hidden in the trees, Pelican watched the boys, specifically Rider. That had been an enlightening conversation. He didn't buy for a second that Rider was bullied - he showed none of the signs. It was also blatantly obvious to anybody who was watching closely that Rider was faking. It was nigh impossible to hide signs of advanced training to another who had the same sort of background, and who knew what to look for.<p>

Pelican's estimation of Rider shot up a notch. 

* * *

><p>Back on the ground, the boys had stumbled onto a large pile of logs and sticks that were way too big for the fire. Jeremy, nursing a few scrapes and scratches, sat sullenly on a rock. He had tried to bend a stick into two to break it, and it had lashed back and scratched him.<p>

Alex and Tom gathered a few and walked a few feet away. Alex wedged one slightly into the ground, held it at the top, and kicked it firmly near the bottom. It snapped in two, and he bent to gather it up.

"How'd you do that?" It was Colin, who had come up behind them.

"Oh, Tom's dad showed us how to do that a few years ago," Alex lied, turning.

Tom nodded enthusiastically. "Yeah, we went camping once," he said, continuing the story easily. "It was the craziest thing, man, I swear we were attacked by this horde of massive rabid squirrels - "

"Can you show me?" Colin said, trying to bury his own stick into the ground.

"Twist as you dig it," said Alex, showing him. "It's easier that way. Now kick around here." He motioned to a spot that should be easy to break.

Colin kicked it firmly, and it split neatly. He grinned, holding up the pieces. "Thanks! Do you go camping a lot?"

"Sometimes," Alex said, half-truthfully, figuring on the spot that he could use more of his camping knowledge without being suspicious. "My uncle used to take me."

Colin nodded, but his face had turned instantly cautious and he quickly changed the subject. That only confirmed what Tom had said earlier. He supposed it was nice, in a way, though they all probably thought his hospital trips were psycho episodes or something.

Maybe it wouldn't be too hard to make friends again. 

* * *

><p>Building a fire was impossible.<p>

Downright impossible.

Alex gave up about halfway through. He couldn't deal with these...these children. Honestly, they acted as if they were purposefully trying to be incompetent. In the middle of a loud argument about whether the leaves and small kindling went on top of the pyramid or underneath, Alex accidentally-on-purpose tripped over a rock and came down hard on one knee. He rolled slightly so that it didn't actually hurt, but that didn't stop him from crying out in pain.

"Are you alright?" Tom asked, as the argument stopped momentarily.

Alex nursed his knee and stretched it gingerly. "I guess," he said, wincing in feigned pain. "Shit, I may just sit down for a while."

"We don't need you anyway, Rider," came the expected comment from Jeremy. Alex ignored him.

Their attentions all turned back to the argument, and Alex took that time to lean on the pile of sticks and glance around him to spot the unit men. He let his gaze unfocus slightly as he skimmed the trees, waiting for any sign of movement. To his left, something flickered in his peripheral vision, and he turned his head ever so slightly.

A few branches waved as if wind had rustled them, but none of the surrounding trees were moving. Probably one hiding up there. He kept looking as the rest of the people in his group decided to compromise and put kindling on the bottom and the top. They only had ten matches, so Alex hoped they would sort things out soon - he didn't really care at this point. He had contributed to the wood, and he could let his classmates argue it out. Who had decided this was a good idea? Alex wasn't even sure that this gave him added security, as a sniper in one of the trees could easily take him out before the SAS men reacted. Somebody could hide in a bush, or plant an explosion...while their barracks were empty, a Scorpia agent could sneak in...there were all sorts of dangers posed to them while they were away from camp. He supposed that the survival techniques were good, but he knew how to build a fire, and L-Unit hadn't even given them any instruction. How were they supposed to build a fire with no help? If Ian hadn't taught Alex, he too would be stumped.

"Fuck!" The expletive came, surprisingly, from Brooke as she dropped the box of matches in disgust. "We're done."

"You lit it?" Alex asked, turning his attention back. The kindling had all burned up without lighting the larger sticks of wood in a pyramid.

Brooke sat moodily next to him. "All the matches are gone."

"Now what?" Tom asked, also sitting.

"You failed," came a voice from behind them. They all turned quickly to see Jackal striding towards them, looking upset. "That took you entirely too long. You argued constantly, half of you failed to get adequate wood, wasted your one survival tool, and didn't even build the damn fire correctly before you tried to light it! If this were real, you would die."

The eight teenagers sat sullenly. Alex tried to figure out where Jackal had sprung from. He hadn't heard the man jump from a tree, which meant that he probably had been on the ground...more than anything, Alex resolved to try to pick up some techniques discretely from L-Unit. Maybe he could convince Mongoose, the nice one, into teaching him a few. Alex could hide when he needed too, but he was nothing compared to these four.

"Get up," barked Jackal. "We're walking back. We'll be going with you, as we think you're incapable of finding your way back."

The other three members swung down from trees, appearing as if by magic. Alex was mollified slightly to see that he'd guessed Frog's position, but he wasn't pleased that he missed the other three.

He couldn't afford to let his senses dull like that - it would likely mean death for all of them. 

* * *

><p>Far away, the members of K-Unit sat in a dusty motel, trying to figure out their next move.<p>

They had nothing. Nada. The information they'd obtained from the warehouse had been a fat lot of encoded nonsense that had fried the cheap netbook they'd bought to download the information on. They were still hanging on to the flash drive, but it wasn't helping them at all.

For the millionth time, Eagle groaned loudly. "I still don't understand why the hell we're doing this," he complained, tossing a raggedy tennis ball he'd filched from the streets up and down. "This isn't our area at all."

Fox sighed heavily. "I told you, we're doing this as a favor."

"To who, Cub?" Eagle tossed the ball up. "He's just a twitchy little kid."

Fox only shook his head. "My new employees asked me to assemble a team. I picked you. If you have a problem with that, you can leave."

Eagle blew air out with his lips and grinned wryly at Fox. "Aw man, you know I'm down to reunite the group, but couldn't we have done something cool and less hush-hush?"

"Everything we do is 'hush-hush,'" said Snake, snatching the ball out of the air. "But usually our mission isn't classified even to us."

Fox had known that MI6's refusal to tell K-Unit anything would cause problems, but there wasn't anything he could do about it at the moment. "I promise I'll tell you everything when we get back to camp," he said placatingly.

"Ah, camp," said Eagle, leaning back. "Can't say I miss that shithole any."

"Does anyone?"

Eagle grinned and kicked Snake so that he gave back the ball. "I'm sure some people have fond memories of walking up at four AM to run the first five fucking miles of the day," he said sarcastically, "before eating a piece-of-shit breakfast and doing stupid training exercises."

"They aren't stupid if they work," pointed out Fox.

"They're stupid if half the people flunk out," Eagle said in rebuttal.

"Which only weeds out the stupid people," Snake said, adding his two cents. He took back the ball and bounced it against the wall. "You're just mad because you almost failed."

Eagle made a face at Snake. "Because of that little kid!"

"That little kid's dangerous," Wolf said, speaking up for the first time. He shook his head at the memory of the ordeal at Point Blanc. "He's also annoying as fuck. Doesn't surprise me that someone's out to off him."

Fox, who was actually fond of Alex, said, "He's annoying, yeah, but he doesn't deserve to die for it."

"Some people do."

"Cub doesn't. And anyway, if we find the people after him, we find a helluva lot more."

Nobody argued with that, and they started debating about whether they should stay in their current country or move on. 

* * *

><p>Alex stumbled while trying to jump over ropes stretched across the ground and almost fell flat on his face. Swearing to himself, he hobbled his way through the mini course, wishing all the while that he could just do it normally in half the time.<p>

"Why are you so bad at this sort of thing?" Colin asked, not unkindly, as they took a break for water.

Alex shrugged, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. "I spent a lot of time lying down," he said. "My muscles got weak, I guess."

Colin bit his lip, and then said, "Me and a coupla guys from the football team were planning to continue our training here. I mean, we have a whole championship tournament in a month, and we can't slack off - you should come."

Alex froze. "Thanks," he said hesitantly, not at all sure how to respond to that. His paranoid mind immediately began whirring ahead. Were they trying to make fun of him? Did the teachers make Colin decide to be nice? Was Alex getting pitied? Was it safe to go out in the open like that? How was he supposed to pretend to be a weakling for even longer, in front of his old football friends?

Colin smiled, shrugged a shoulder, and said, "You know Harrison's the new captain, right? He'll whip you into shape."

"Thanks," said Alex again because he had no idea what to say.

Tom elbowed Alex and said, "Hey, the new captain's even more of a terror than you were? Impossible."

"I was not a terror," Alex responded, still trying to get his head around this offer of friendship.

Colin snickered. "Alex, you made us practice the same thing for hours. I got so buff when you were captain, damn."

Alex grinned and said, "I bet I helped you get all the girls, even though you all kept cursing me."

"Can't deny it," said Colin. "I'm glad you've decided to come, I think we're starting today. Tom, you're, uh, welcome to come too."

Tom shuddered. "More exercise? Are you daft?"

"Guess so," Colin said, putting down his water bottle as Jackal yelled for them to stop running their mouths and start running their feet. "It'll be fun."

"Yeah," Alex replied, jogging back to the beginning of the course to try again. "It will be fun." 

* * *

><p>During lunch, Colin took his tray to sit next to Harrison. "I invited Alex to train with us during free time," he said as he sat down.<p>

Harrison looked up from glaring at his food. "Rider?"

Colin raised his eyebrows. "We've all played together since grade school, Harrison."

Harrison looked a bit embarrassed at him. "There's a lot of Alex's," he defended himself. "Did you find out what the deal is on him?"

"Apparently he's weak from all the hospital trips," reported Colin, setting aside his bread - the only decent part of the meal - for last.

"If he was even in the hospital."

"Are you talking about Rider?" Another boy on the team, Tony, sat down next to Colin. "He definitely wasn't sick the whole bloody time."

"Why not?" Colin asked. "I mean, his uncle died. People get sick a lot after those kinds of things."

"Yeah, mentally sick," another boy chimed in. "Not physically."

"It's possible," said another.

"Yeah, but Alex was always really strong," said Harrison. "He worked out like crazy, remember his training sessions?"

They shuddered together.

"I don't think he's as weak as he's letting on," continued Harrison. "He has muscles, and you don't get muscles from laying around."

Colin shrugged. Alex was a mystery to everyone. "He practically flipped when I asked him to join us," he said, grinning a little at the thought.

"He was pissed?"

"Surprised," corrected Colin. "Like he was confused why I was talking to him."

They all turned to look at Alex, who was sitting by himself a little ways off.

"Poor guy," said Harrison. "With his uncle and all."

"Yeah." Colin was quiet, thinking about his own uncle, who had died last year. "Maybe we should talk to him."

"Don't be a fucking pussy," said another boy scornfully. "We're not his therapists."

"We were his friends," Colin said forcefully. "Maybe if we'd, you know, talked to him after his uncle died, he wouldn't have got into drugs and all that shit."

"Don't be a girl."

"And anyway, they told us to leave him alone," Harrison pointed out.

Colin took a bite of his lunch, grimaced, and swallowed quickly. "This shit is disgusting. And we didn't have to ignore him."

"Do you think he's really into drugs?"

"Or a gang!"

Colin nodded hesitantly. "I think that's the reason we're here," he confided, dropping his voice. "I mean, you've all seen the movies."

Harrison grinned. "His gang pissed off another gang, and bam! Gang war!"

"Maybe he's in the mafia!"

"Maybe that's why he's pretending to be weak," said one boy, waggling his eyebrows. "So nobody knows he's the mafia!"

Laughter followed this statement, and the conversation turned to the best movies about the mafia. Although Colin participated, he couldn't help but keep looking at Alex. He felt bad for the guy, he really did. They'd grown up together, gone to the same primary school and everything. Maybe once Alex realized he had actual friends, he'd stop being a druggie and go back to being normal. 

* * *

><p><em>He hated the sun.<em>

_Alex tried to muster up the strength to glare balefully at the sun, but he failed. It was all he could do was keep walking - keep soldiering on._

_He wasn't sure how long he'd been out in that blasted sun. It could have been minutes, days, weeks, hours. Time blended together into one large haze of thirst, pain, exhaustion and the heat of the sun. His mind was strangely empty. There was just one thought hammering in his head: get to base. He thought it slowly as he took slow steps. Get. To. Base. He accentuated them with a footstep, keeping his body in time. If he stopped, even for a second, Alex knew he wouldn't get up - the only thing to do was to keep walking._

_He was in the middle of a desert, or maybe a field. The location was constantly in flux as Alex tried to wrap his blurry head around this ordeal. He had been traveling with a partner, but the man hadn't been vigilant, and he had fallen. Alex had kept walking. He couldn't bring himself to care about the man, who was training to be a Scorpia assassin and would most likely be killed for his failure. _

_He kept walking. That was all he could do._

* * *

><p>When Alex woke up, sweating, he lay panting in his bed, clutching the sheets defensively.<p>

The survival missions that Scorpia sent their trainees on were brutal. Alex shuddered to himself and wiped his hand across his forehead, but his hand was as damp as his face. He sat up, feeling exhausted. It was stifling hot in the barracks, which probably was what had prompted his dream, and he kicked off his sheets and swung his feet over the side.

Padding over to the door, he swung it open to let cool air in. Why was it so damn hot? It was chilly outside, and he hadn't thought the barracks would have air conditioning or heating.

Walking back to his bed, the door still cracked, Alex reached into the pack by his bed and drew out a small LED flashlight. Flipping it on, he directed the beam towards the ground as to not wake the rows of snoring boys. Towards the back corner of the cabin, he found the source of the temperature: a small heater that was turned way too high.

Alex knelt by the heater to turn it down. Pausing with one hand on the dial, he stopped and sniffed the air.

Bitter. Tangy.

Alex coughed, instinctively jerking away from the heater. Shit! That smell was not normal, and while Alex didn't know what it was, he was willing to bet it was bad. Mind whirring, he reached for the plug and pulled it. It sparked, but nothing appeared to happen.

"Everybody get up!" Alex shouted, pushing the heater away. His mind whirring, he made a snap decision. "Get up right now!"

A few boys stirred. "Whassit?"

Alex jogged over to the door and flipped on the lights. Groans arose from the half-slumbering boys. "What the hell?"

"The Sergeant said that if we're not in the mess hall in ten minutes, we won't get meals for a day," Alex yelled, wrinkling his nose. The scent was spreading. "It's a night exercise."

"What?"

"Just get up!"

They didn't appear to be stirring, so he knelt by Tom's bed and shook him forcefully awake. "What's going on, Alex?"

"Make sure everybody makes it to the mess hall," Alex said sharply. Tom blinked, yawned, and nodded sleepily.

"Why?"

"Night exercise, the Sergeant just came in, didn't you hear?" Alex lied, trying to impress with his eyes that it was a serious situation. He wasn't sure whether Tom understood, but he didn't have time to waste; he needed to find the Sergeant.

"What are you going to do?"

Alex opened his mouth and hesitated. "Um, get the girls," he said, unable to think of a good reason to leave. Tom nodded and swung out of bed, and Alex jogged away. He passed a group of soldiers conducting a night exercise and sped up before they could ask him anything. Alex managed to make it to the main office within a couple of minutes, and he flew in the door without knocking. "Sergeant!"

A grumpy looking soldier looked up from a magazine, hand going immediately to his gun. "What do you want?"

"Where's the Sergeant?"

"Not here," the soldier said dismissively. "Go back to sleep."

"It's urgent," Alex insisted. Where was the Sergeant?

The soldier rolled his eyes. "Yeah, I'm sure it is. Listen, baby, I don't care if you wet your diaper - go the hell back to sleep and don't come back."

"The cabin, there's a heater, it's smelling weird - "

"I don't care," the soldier said firmly. "Go tell your teachers, or sleep, whatever. We're not babysitters."

Alex swore and jogged away, trying to figure out what to do. He didn't have enough time to argue. Get everybody out, he decided and sped up. When he reached the barracks, he saw to his dismay that only a few people milled around outside. "Rider," said one of them - Harrison. "What the hell's going on?"

"The Sergeant told me to wake everyone up," Alex said quickly, tripping over the words. This was bad, shit, he needed to figure out what to do! "Now. He's pissed. He wants us in the mess hall."

"Why?"

Alex bit his lip. "I dunno, just go," he said pleadingly. "I don't want to get in trouble - "

"Someone just collapsed!"

Alex whipped around. A boy clattered down the stairs of the barrack, pointing behind him with worried eyes. "He just fell over!"

"Who was it?"

"That short kid, Tom," said the boy. "He was poking around Kevin's heater and he just fell over, I swear!"

"Is this part of the training exercise?" Harrison asked, not looking too worried.

Alex seized the opportunity. "It must be," he agreed instantly. "We should get to the mess hall before it's too late."

"Okay, everybody go," Harrison barked authoritatively. The yawning boys reacted instantly to the order, making their way sleepily to the mess hall. Alex dashed inside. Tom was lying next to the heater as the boy had said, a stick in his hand. He'd clearly noticed the smell and decided to investigate. Dammit! Why would he do that?

"Tom!" Alex whispered harshly, shaking his friend. "Tom!"

"Let's get him out of here," said Colin, who had lingered behind. "You get the head, I'll get the feet."

"Thanks," Alex said shortly, bending to pick up Tom. He was relatively light, so it was easy for the two boys to carry him out.

"How do you think the SAS men knocked him out?" Colin asked enthusiastically as they carried him to the mess hall. "Pretty cool, huh? I wonder what they're going to teach us this time."

"Yeah," Alex said tightly. "It's pretty cool."

This was all his fault. What if Tom was seriously injured? Alex mentally cursed himself. He should have evacuated everybody first, dammit, or told the teachers, or something...

The boys sat in the mess hall, talking excitedly as they began to become more alert. None of them seemed to notice that the girls were conspicuously missing, or that there weren't any SAS men. Alex laid Tom down on the table and sat at his head, trying to figure out what to report to MI6. How could he tell them he'd failed so badly?

A few minutes later, a very upset Sergeant barged through the door. "Somebody tell me what the hell is going on here?"

"Rider said it was a training exercise," someone piped up before Alex could say anything.

The Sergeant's eyes fell on Alex and the prone figure of Tom lying beside him. "Of course it is," he said, without missing a beat. "But why the hell are you sitting here shouting to each other? If I wanted to ambush you, you'd be dead before you even heard me coming!"

Silence settled on the boys.

"You took too long evacuating, and one of your men went down," the Sergeant continued. Alex thanked whatever deity that occasionally looked after him that the man was good at improvisation. The Sergeant crossed the room and picked up Tom as if he was a rag doll. "Rider, come with me, we're taking him to the hospital to get the antidote."

Alex followed obediently. They walked in silence to the hospital, where the Sergeant passed Tom off to the soldier on duty. Once Tom was safely in a bed receiving a check up, the Sergeant rounded on Alex. "Cub," he said roughly, "what the hell happened?"

"The heater," Alex said, suddenly at a loss for words. He felt very much like a little kid getting reprimanded by the principal. "It woke me up, it was smelling funny, so I tried to find you - "

"You went to the main office, didn't you?" The Sergeant said, groaning. "Cub, why would I be there in the middle of the night? Why didn't you go to my barracks?"

"Your - your barracks?"

"Dammit, Cub!" The man visibly restrained himself. "What happened after that? Did you tell the soldier on duty what happened?"

"I tried, he didn't listen!"

"A teacher? Another soldier?"

Alex opened his mouth, but he had nothing to say and shut it again.

The Sergeant swore to himself. "Okay, where is this heater? Did you leave it alone?"

"I - I unplugged it," Alex said hesitantly.

This time, the swear coming from the Sergeant was much louder. "Are you a child, Rider?" The Sergeant shouted, gesturing wildly. "They told me you were trained! Act like it!"

"I didn't have much time - "

"You never have much time!" The Sergeant cracked his knuckles. "Dammit, you should have left it be, evacuated everybody, and told an adult! L-Unit, they would have listened. The soldiers outside. Your teachers. And why the hell did you come to the main office? I told you lot on the first day where my barracks were. You could have told MI6. Stop acting like an untrained child, and start acting like a trained agent!"

Alex tried to defend himself, but there was really nothing he could say. "I tried - "

"And you failed. You screwed up, Rider. There's probably an assassin around right now," the Sergeant said, making Alex shut his eyes in horror. He hadn't even thought of that. The Sergeant was right, he'd acted impulsively like a kid. He couldn't afford to make mistakes like that."

"Go tell the doctor what the smell was like while I fix this situation," the Sergeant growled, pointing to the next room. "Stay here. I'm sending L-Unit to look after you. As of now, they are informed of your status, Cub."

"What? You can't do that, it won't solve anything!"

"Since you insist on acting like a child, I'll treat you as one," the older man said harshly. "Now stay here. I make the decisions." He gave one last venomous glare and stormed out.

"Fuck," Alex swore softly to himself. His body was trembling with adrenaline. He had messed up before, but it was usually on the job and he could find a way to fix things. Alex had never really been yelled at like this before, as if he was an unruly child.

And now L-Unit would be informed of his status! How could the Sergeant do that? That would only make things worse!

Alex groaned and went into the next room to talk to the doctor. He'd really screwed up this time - it was completely, 100% his fault.


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: A lot of stuff's about to go down. A note concerning Alex: he's not perfect. He makes mistakes. He's not so badass that he can automatically beat my L-Unit. He also occasionally acts like a teenager because he is one. He can be immature too. **

**I'd love to hear your guesses on the spy.**

* * *

><p>The Sergeant, Paul, muttered encoded words tersely into his cell-phone, dispatching a group of his soldiers to look after the children, another to search the girl's barracks, and the others on night duty to scour every meter of the camp until they found the assassin. He made a stop by L-Unit's cabin to rouse them awake and tell them to follow him before he booked it towards the boy's barracks. He spared a thought for Rider - stupid, idiotic, young Rider - sitting in the hospital while he quickly explained the situation to L-Unit.<p>

"So Alex found the thing and unplugged it," said Frog, who as the fastest kept up easily with the Sergeant. "What's the big deal?"

"It might be a bomb, for all we know," the Sergeant replied, speeding up. "Maybe it's releasing poisonous gas into the whole bloody camp, does it matter? It's an unknown threat, soldier, and we need to get the hell rid of it."

They stopped in front of the barracks and Pelican stepped forward. He had more experience with bombs or even gas than the other three, barring maybe the Sergeant, and he walked in cautiously.

The heater lay toppled over. The moment Pelican walked in, the scent hit him and he took a step back, coughing. Pulling off his shirt, he pressed it against his nose as he walked outside. "Do we have gas masks?"

A few minutes later, all five men entered with masks firmly affixed to their faces. Frog and Mongoose checked the other beds while Jackal looked for wires and Pelican and Paul examined the heater. The plug lay half-coiled next to the heater, and there were no wires leading from it to the outlet – thank God. The Sergeant knew that there were types of bombs that could be triggered by dislodging the plug from the outlet, which was one of the reasons he'd snapped so harshly at Rider.

"I don't think it's a bomb," Pelican said, running his hands boldly along the device. "We should look at it more closely, but I think it was supposed to kill them all in their sleep, so by the time we went looking tomorrow morning the scent had dissipated."

Paul pursed his lips as he thought this over. Grudgingly, he admitted that for this particular situation, getting everybody out had been a good first step for Rider. It was when he refused to get help from anybody but Paul that the trouble started – although, he realized again with a scowl, with a Scorpia agent on the loose that hadn't been such a bad idea.

Rider had still handled the situation badly, which only confirmed the Sergeant's thought that he needed more training. His instincts were good, but apart from that awful stint a few years back when Cub had just been fourteen, the file didn't state he had any advanced training (Scorpia nonwithstanding, and that was considered null).

"Okay, let's move it out," said Paul, flipping open his cell phone. He had a group of people that handled delicate things such as this heater, and he instructed them to move it to a safe place and examine it. "Was it Y-Unit or Z-Unit that pissed me off yesterday?"

L-Unit looked at each other. They had no idea, but Bear from Y-Unit was a complete jackass, so they chanted as one, "Y-Unit."

"Thought so," Paul said, waving them off. "Go tell Y-Unit they're in charge of the kiddies, and they better have a good explanation for what's going on to tell them, okay?"

L-Unit exchanged gleeful looks. "Sir, yes sir."

"And when you're done, meet me in the hospital."

L-Unit left to do his bidding, and Paul took out his phone, preparing to inform MI6 of the news. He was about to click send when he made a face and shut his phone. MI6 could wait. His soldiers, and his young charges, and especially Rider came first. It was his territory, his jurisdiction, and he was going to do what he saw fit.

In the hospital, Mongoose was surprised to see Alex sitting forlornly in one of the waiting room chairs. Ever the medic, the SAS men walked over to the boy and sat next to him. "Are you okay?"

Alex looked up. "Clearly."

Mongoose ignored the sarcasm. "Why are you here?"

The teenager gave a small shrug. "Tom's hurt."

Tom. It took Mongoose a second to place the name – in all honesty, Alex and that pest Jeremy are the only two he knew – and it brought to mind the short boy that'd been following Alex around. He must have gotten hurt in the weird gas debacle. "Is he okay?"

"Oh, sure, which is why he's in the hospital," Alex snapped.

Mongoose frowned. His posture was extremely defensive, as if he was expecting multiple attacks. It might stem out of worry from his friend, but somehow Mongoose doubted it. The other three members of his unit were standing near the door, talking in low voices, and Mongoose found it strange that Alex hadn't even looked at them once.

"Do you want me to check on him for you?" Mongoose persisted. He didn't have much experience with children, but surely it must be hard for a bullied teenager like Alex to be here in the tough SAS camp. Surely one sympathetic adult wouldn't hurt. Mongoose didn't particularly care about any of the other brats, but there was something – something he couldn't really place, some determination or strength of character – about Alex that had endeared the younger boy to him.

Alex didn't even dignify that with a proper reply, instead rolling his eyes and looking away.

Mongoose sighed and, after a moment, stood. Alex was clearly too worried about his friend to talk. He returned to his unit mates.

"Get anything out of the boy?" Jackal asked gruffly.

Mongoose gave him a Look. "His friend's got hurt."

Pelican raised a delicate eyebrow. "How terrible."

"Yes," said Mongoose, wondering if he was going to get ribbed for caring about the kid.

Frog scratched his blonde head before stretching his arms. "I wonder why Sarge wants us here," he said, a smile spreading over his features. "Wouldn't it be wicked if he gave us a special assignment?"

Jackal gave him a dismissive look. "If the Sergeant wants us here, he's probably going to give us a dirty job," he said, ignoring how the youngest member's smile quickly disappeared.

Mongoose tried to patch up the situation. "Why would he call us out here, then? He probably has something he wants to tell us in private."

This had the intended effect of reviving Frog's spirits. "Maybe he'll give me a new unit," he said, giving a dirty look towards Jackal.

"Oh, cry me a river," said the aforementioned man sarcastically.

Mongoose rolled his eyes. He'd long since gotten used to the constant arguing between the two, who acted almost like brothers. "I do wonder what he's going to tell us," he said, trying to get the conversation back on track.

Pelican turns to give Alex an appraising stare. The boy stares back defiantly. "I think I have some idea what it's about," he said, his voice carrying unintentionally loudly across the room.

Mongoose wondered what he meant.

* * *

><p>Alex, on the other hand, knew exactly what he meant. Pelican didn't like him, that much was obvious.<p>

He glared.

Half of it was acting, and half of it was real. He had discerned from their brief conversation that they didn't know about his occupation – yet, but they were about to be informed very soon. Hence his belligerent attitude. Alex didn't intend to co-operate with the venture, and the sooner they knew that, the better. See, Alex had a talent: he could piss people off very easily. He estimated it would take him a few days to get L-Unit so fed up that they refused to train him at all, and then what would the Sergeant do? He couldn't assign Alex to another unit; he couldn't risk news of Alex's occupation leaking out.

That being said, Alex wasn't even sure how much he trusted L-Unit. (To be honest, Alex was feeling a bit uncomfortable around Pelican). What if they blabbed their mouths and the spy found out about his abilities? He couldn't afford to have them know the true extent of his talents, and the more they underestimated him, the better.

He caught Pelican staring at him again, and Alex raised a bored eyebrow. This should be easy. Four young men with no experience dealing with children? He'd have them going around the bend within days. The Sergeant obviously hadn't read Alex's file because if he had, he'd know that Alex didn't exactly go along with stupid ideas. If he didn't know it would be suicide, Alex would want to just run away. Every second he was in the camp was clearly a danger to everybody around him. Not for the first, or even for the millionth time, Alex wondered what MI6 was thinking. A teenager with access to the internet could come up with a better plan than this. Alex certainly could. Were they stupid, or did they have an ulterior motive?

Alex noticed slight creaking outside, but he tried not to react. He knew without looking up that Mongoose was most likely looking at him, not to mention Pelican. The other two were hotly debating whether experience was better than natural ability, with the little one, Frog, winning the argument. He stared at the grainy wood and waited for the Sergeant to walk in, all the while trying to note everything he could about L-Unit.

Jackal was the leader, this much was obvious. He was the oldest, the sternest, and the gruffest. Frog was the opposite, obviously newer to service and much more excitable. Pelican…well, Alex didn't know much about him, and Mongoose was the nicest out of them all.

He groaned to himself as the door swung open. He wasn't ready for this. He barely knew anything about L-Unit…but he hoped for his sake that the Sergeant did.

"Oi, you lot, listen up," the Sergeant barked. Alex grinned as L-Unit comically snapped to attention. The relaxed bickering of earlier was replaced with strict attention, though Frog had a funny half smile on his face in anticipation of his 'special duty.'

Ha.

"I have something very important to tell you," the Sergeant said, diving in without missing a beat. Alex tensed in anticipation. Would he just blurt it out? "You lot will get a new job when I'm done explaining."

"Sir, shouldn't the boy leave for this?" Jackal said, jerking a thumb towards Alex. "This is clearly sensitive information not meant for a kid's ears."

"I'm allowed to watch restricted movies on the telly," Alex piped up.

The Sergeant ignored this and gave a bitter little smile. "Oh, he's up to his ears in it already."

They all shot him curious looks, but Alex was too busy regarding the Sergeant in surprise. It wasn't just anger that Alex heard in his voice – although that was there in spades as well – it was disgust. Alex flinched. Disgust. Was that what he was about to see from L-Unit as well? The same disgust he saw in the teachers, and sometimes even from Tom?

"He's a kid," Mongoose pointed out.

"Yes, he is," the Sergeant said, his eyes never leaving Alex's. Alex felt as if he'd been physically struck, as that was clearly a reminder of his earlier failure. "That doesn't stop him from being in the greasy employ of MI6, however."

Silence.

Alex put on a winning smile. "Surprise?"

"He's a child," repeated Mongoose, whose facial expression hadn't changed. It clearly hadn't registered in his mind.

"A teenager, actually," Alex pointed out. His heart was racing and he felt sweaty, but luckily his inner smart-aleck couldn't be repressed. "There's a notable difference, mainly demonstrated by – "

"Shut up, Rider," the Sergeant snapped. He held out a thin file – Alex was really beginning to hate that file – and Jackal grabbed it, flipping it open.

As L-Unit crowded around to read, Alex shot the Sergeant the most fervently hate-filled glare he could, trying to convey that he was very displeased with what was happening.

* * *

><p>Paul wanted to wince.<p>

The expression on Cub's face, a strange mixture of hatred and disappointment and betrayal and fear, made Paul feel as if he'd made the wrong decision.

It was the right decision. Cub just couldn't think objectively about the situation. Paul trusted L-Unit; for Scorpia to put a spy in there, they would've had to integrate the man almost four years ago, and it would be Frog. There was no way that Frog was a spy. Rider needed training, so that he didn't make rookie mistakes.

Dammit, Paul didn't want to be the bad guy. He was often the subject of hatred in the camp from the recruits, but he tried to make those who passed learn to respect him. He had to be tough. He made men into soldiers. If he could, he'd take Rider and throw him into a school somewhere and keep him away from the MI6, but he couldn't. Whatever shit Rider had gotten into to land himself as an agent, Paul couldn't undo. But he could equip the kid with the tools to stay alive until he could get the hell out, and that's what he wanted to do with the training.

In all honesty, he could have informed L-Unit in the privacy of his office. But, he wanted to see how Rider would react.

Like a teenager, apparently.

"I don't believe this shit," said Jackal, laughing incredulously. "Ha-ha, very funny, come on now."

"Told you he wouldn't fall for it," Rider decided to chime in sweetly.

Paul gave him a glare.

Rider took that as permission to continue. "I mean, how ridiculous is it, right?"

"I don't think it's ridiculous."

All the heads swung towards Pelican, who gave a little smirk. "Makes perfect sense to me."

Paul narrowed his eyes before a realization hit. Pelican had a previous background in military matters before he'd switched to the SAS. He could probably recognize something in Rider or some such shit…or he was just being contrary as usual.

"Can we talk to you outside?" Mongoose said tightly. "Now?"

Paul debated getting mad that they were ordering him around, but Rider's snarky comment – "Oh, a private meeting, this shit's getting serious!" – made him roll his eyes and walk outside.

* * *

><p>Inside, Alex collapsed on the chair. This wasn't going to end up well, but he was determined to end up on top for once in his life. He could train himself. Hone his senses. He now had a legitimate reason to be working out – Colin invited him to train with the team, after all. He didn't need a team of SAS men to train him.<p>

He waited inside for what felt like an hour. The arguing from outside had tapered off a few minutes prior, and Alex was willing to bet they'd forgotten he was in the hospital. It was still black outside, but he was starving and there hadn't been any news on Tom, so he cautiously peeked out the window.

There wasn't anybody outside, and they hadn't specifically told him to stay. Alex shrugged and pushed open the door.

Movement. A large figure dropped from above, where it had probably been perched on the roof, landing where Alex had been a second ago. His instincts took over as Alex twisted his body out of the way, protecting himself from the sudden attack. The man, whose face was covered by a cloth, lashed out at him. Alex deflected the punch and struck out with his back foot, catching the man's knees. Clearly not expecting this, the man stumbled, and Alex took the opportunity to jab his elbow into the man's gut. The man cried out, but he was much larger than Alex, and used his weight to shoulder the smaller boy into the ground.

However, Alex was used to fighting much larger men, and he used the ground to his advantage, kicking out to the man's shins. He dragged his heel painfully down the man's lower leg and jumped up, going on the offense with an barrage of potentially lethal jabs and kicks and punches. One scratch tore the cloth partially away from the man's face, and Alex hesitated, but only just: it was Jackal attacking him.

Shit. Alex couldn't afford to let them know how good he was. While he was coming to terms with the new development, Jackal struck out at Alex's face and the boy fell to the ground. "Alex, you can stop now," Jackal said, fully tearing off the cloth.

He pretended to be surprised as the other members of L-Unit jumped down from the roof and regarded him curiously.

"What the hell?" Frog said, staring at Alex in surprise, and even fear.

Alex smiled tightly. Good thing that he hadn't been at his best at the moment, otherwise his plan of pretending to be worse than he was would've promptly failed. "I should ask you that question," he said, sneering.

"We just wanted to test you, kid," said Jackal, wiping a bloody nose. "You passed."

Alex laughed breathlessly, the fight catching up to him and making him pant. Damn, he was out of shape. "Thanks."

"We believe you now," Frog continued, still giving Alex that look. "Where the fuck did you learn to fight like that?"

"MI6, or weren't you listening?" Alex snapped.

Mongoose stepped forward. "Sorry, Alex," he said, pitching his voice to be calming. "We didn't realize you would react so violently."

"I thought you were a Scorpia agent trying to kill me," Alex said derisively, beginning to walk away. Damn, he was going to have a bruise on his face. "What the hell was I supposed to do?"

"He has a point," commented Pelican dryly, as the unit began to follow him. "You were pretty good, but you're out of shape and you were sloppy."

"I'm aware of that, thanks," Alex said uncharitably, speeding up to lose them.

Jackal chimed in, voice louder, "If I had been trying to kill you, you'd be dead."

"Excellent." Alex walked faster.

"Tonight, after your classmates go to sleep, we'll talk about this more," Mongoose called after him as he flat out broke into a run. They were luckily far enough away from anything else that he didn't think anybody could hear them, and there literally was no cover so an agent couldn't be hiding. Unless it was one of L-Unit, in which case he would shortly be dead, so it was a moot point.

* * *

><p>They watched him storm off.<p>

"What the fuck," said Frog, for at least the third or fourth time. "Who saw that coming?"

"Did you see how he moved?" Mongoose said, shaking his head.

Jackal nodded, still holding his bleeding nose. "Man, I thought the Sergeant was exaggerating," he said, exhaling deeply. "I can't believe that this - this kid can fight like that!"

"It must be awful to pretend to be useless," Pelican commented. "Funny how he managed to trick all of us, huh?"

The unit was silent as they thought about it.

"I just don't get it," Mongoose burst out a second later. "Why would they need a little kid to beat people up for them? They have adults."

Pelican smiled without any humor. "Nobody would expect a kid of being an agent," he pointed out.

"I still don't believe it," Jackal continued. "I mean, for somebody to have been through that much..."

"It's a miracle that he's sane," added Mongoose. He remembered Alex's back, the small glimpse he'd seen before the boy had reflexively shielded himself, and shuddered. "Do you think - do you think he's been abused?"

"And forced into it, you mean?" Jackal asked. He frowned. "I mean, it's likely."

"Do you really think he'd be doing this by choice?" Pelican said dryly.

Frog shrugged. "I mean, he's a spy? What schoolboy doesn't dream of being a spy?"

"It's not a film," snapped Jackal, glaring at the youngest member. "He's probably been in hospital more times than we have, and that's saying something."

"He needs our help, in any case," said Mongoose, remembered the cold look that had crept into Alex's eyes when he'd been attacked by Jackal. "If he keeps going on like this, he's not going to survive. Mentally and physically."

What horrors had Alex gone through? What had he seen, or been forced to do? The mood chilled considerably as L-Unit thought about it. None of them, not even Frog, could fathom going through any of the horrors the Sergeant had hinted that Alex had survived at his age. It was strange, but as they stood there, they almost felt protective of the kid.

"Somehow, I get the feeling he isn't going to want our help," Jackal said, shaking his head. "I elect Mongoose to go talk to him."

"Why me?"

"He likes you best," Pelican pointed out. "And you're the doctor. And you have a kid."

Mongoose conceded that this was true. In truth, he liked Alex. He didn't want to leave the boy without anybody to fend for him. He deserved better than that.

* * *

><p>Outside the mess hall, Alex paused and looked around him. L-Unit was huddled not too far away, quite obviously discussing him. He gave them a little sneer and ducked inside the hall. The girls had joined the boys, and they were sitting and apparently listening to a unit at the middle of the hall. Alex smiled awkwardly as they all stared at him and slunk to one of the tables, slipping in at the side.<p>

The unit leader shook his head and started talking again. Alex tuned him out. It was going to be much harder than he thought to hold back. When his instincts took over, his focus sharpened and he moved without thinking. It was hard enough to pretend to be useless at the every day activities they subjected him to at camp, let alone at advanced fighting against four trained men.

"Alex," said a voice quietly. Alex looked up to see Mr. Bray giving him a very nervous smile.

Oh. Alex didn't particularly want to talk to his teacher, but he put on a smile. No point scaring off the only adult ally he had in this camp. "Hi, Mr. Bray."

"I have a letter from your guardian," Mr. Bray said, handing him another sealed envelope with his initials. Alex's curiosity piqued as he took it. K-Unit was contacting him? Interesting. "But what on Earth happened to your face?"

Alex touched the bruise forming slowly on his face. "I fell," he said, trying to force himself to blush. "I was running to find the Sergeant and I tripped over a stupid rock."

Mr. Bray nodded sympathetically. It made sense; it was still dark outside. "You should get it looked at."

"Yes, Mr. Bray," said Alex, who had no intention of doing any such thing. Who knew what else they'd want to 'look at' after they examined his face?

"Good. And I would like to talk to you during your free period."

"Why?" Alex asked, who had a feeling that his free periods would be limited from now on. L-Unit had just entered the hall, and as one they zeroed in on Alex. Wonderful. Mongoose broke away from the group and began walking over, as he was apparently the designated communication between the two parties.

Mr. Bray bit his lip uncomfortably, the gesture looking odd on a grown man. "The teachers wish to speak to you, concerning the latest events."

"No," Alex said, shaking his head as Mongoose walked up. The word was meant for both of them.

Mr. Bray nodded, strangely sympathetic. "I understand, Alex. I'll make sure it's a relatively painless meeting, but they've been insisting for a while."

"Who's been insisting?" Mongoose decided to insert himself into the conversation.

Alex gave him a cool look. "None of your business."

"Alex!" Mr. Bray reprimanded, turning to Mongoose. "Alex has been acting up lately," he said severely, switching instantly into 'teacher' mode. "We're calling a meeting to discuss it."

"You're embarrassing me," Alex whined, trying to pitch his voice to be as irritating as possible.

He was rewarded with two winces. "Funny you should say that, as we wanted to talk to Alex about the little stunt he pulled today," Mongoose said sternly. "Can you come outside with us?"

"Alex, I'm very disappointed in you," said Mr. Bray.

Alex rolled his eyes but got up to follow Mongoose. When they were outside, the older man dropped his voice and began muttering very quietly. "Tonight. After everybody goes to sleep. Our barracks. Don't bring anything." Louder, he pretended to scold Alex. "How could you do that? You put all of us in danger because of your stunt."

The others joined them, and Alex snapped back, "If you lot weren't so incompetent, I wouldn't have to do things like that!"

Jackal towered over Alex. "Shut up, you impertinent child!"

"Oh, someone's discovered a thesaurus isn't a dinosaur," Alex shot back, partly to keep up the charade to any watchers that he was a belligerent teenager, and partly to advance his plan of pissing L-Unit off. "Congratulations, that was four whole syllables, do you want a medal?"

Jackal's face darkened, but he took a deep breath. "I'm sorry that I hit you," he said quietly. "Is your face okay?"

"It's fine," Alex insisted. He raised his voice again. "Now, if you're done yelling at me for your mistake, can I go read my letter?"

They let him go.

* * *

><p><em>Cub,<em>

_We were told off for disrupting your time at camp - apparently you aren't supposed to focus on anything except your "quest to discover nature's form," as it says on the brochure. Having fun there, Cub? Sounds thrilling. Unfortunately, we have upsetting news. We're still in the middle of nowhere, and we haven't stumbled upon anything yet._

_You have a cellphone. Use it. I'm confident you can find our number. Have you followed our instructions?_

_-Snake_

Huh. Why was Snake writing him this time? Alex searched the envelope, but unlike last time, there was no hidden message. Alex ran his tongue along his teeth as he tried to decipher what K-Unit meant.

_We were told off for disrupting your time at camp - apparently you aren't supposed to focus on anything except your "quest to discover nature's form," as it says on the brochure._ Okay, so MI6 yelled at them for contacting him - why? They clearly were going after Scorpia, but why K-Unit, and why wouldn't they be allowed to contact him?

The line about his quest clearly referred to the spy, though Alex wasn't trying to ferret out who it was. He was more concerned with keeping himself alive, and they'd told him not to go looking. Fine by him. Did K-Unit want him to find the spy?

The news that they hadn't found anything was disappointing, but how was he supposed to find their number? The only way he could think of was to break into the Sergeant's office, and he very much doubted that would happen.

Again, the letter brought up more questions than answers, and Alex ripped it to shreds uncharitably. For once, he would just like a bloody straight answer! Was that too much to ask?

* * *

><p>That night, when everybody went to sleep, Alex sat up in bed. He'd gone to bed early and set his watch alarm for twelve, figuring that everybody would be asleep by then. Alex had managed to grab a couple hours of sleep, which he had a feeling he would be very thankful for in the morning.<p>

Swinging his feet out of bed, he knelt and put on socks. As usual, he slipped twenty pounds down his socks before he aced up his boots. Alex had a very small, sharp pocket knife, which he hid down the boots. He put on a shirt, pinning matches right beneath the pocket, and made sure he had his cellphone in the off chance that he would need it. He brought a water bottle, which he'd filled earlier, and took a few long sips from the glass of water near his bed. As an afterthought, he opened his phone and typed in a message: gone to train with L-Unit near their barracks. He set it to send automatically at six in the morning. If he disappeared before then and couldn't disable it, it would let MI6 know his last confirmed location, which would prove that one of L-Unit was the spy.

His preparations set, he zipped up his jacket and made his way outside. He'd studied the map earlier, and so it only took Alex a few minutes to make his way to where a man was waiting outside for him.

"Come," Jackal said curtly as Alex drew closer. He turned and began walking, expecting Alex to follow.

Alex hesitated, but he followed Jackal anyway, taking deep breaths to oxygenate his blood in case he would have to fight.

"Don't look so scared, kid, I'm not going to abduct you," Jackal said, which didn't alleviate any of Alex's concerns. They walked in silence for a few minutes, Alex trying to mentally retrace his steps just in case he would have to run. They reached an empty building, and Alex let Jackal precede him into the building. The room was empty, - except for L-Unit - dusty and large.

L-Unit made a half circle around him. Alex positioned himself so that he was near to the door, which thankfully opened outward and looked at them expectantly. "Isn't this a merry little gathering."

Mongoose tried to smile welcomingly. "Today, we're going to work on your ability to sense things," he said cheerfully, as if he were talking to Alex's idiot classmates. "Won't it be fun?"

"Oh, for sure," Alex responded in the same fake-happy tone. He gave a little sneer. "What, do you think I'm twelve?"

"Really, Mongoose, condescension doesn't go over well with teenagers," Pelican said amusedly. "You should note that for your kid."

"Aw, are you practicing parenting on me?" Alex said derisively, "how sweet."

"Stop arguing," said Jackal, rolling his eyes. A second later, the lights went out, and Alex struck out. "Ow! Pelican, what the hell, I didn't tell him that yet!"

"Get on with it," said Pelican's voice from somewhere. Alex looked around him wildly, trying to keep calm. There were no windows, and without any lights, he couldn't see anything.

"Put the lights back on." His mind started racing as he imagined all the ways he could die right then and there.

"It's a training exercise," said one of the men.

Alex laughed bitterly, backing up until he hit the wall. He felt around him for the doorknob, but the door had locked behind him. "Put the damn light on!"

"It's okay," Jackal continued, his voice coming from the left. Alex tensed as he tried to locate where Jackal was. There weren't any footsteps. "Now, we're going to strike out at you." Now he was on the right! Alex couldn't pin down where Jackal was exactly, and that worried him. He didn't like being out of control, and he did not like being unable to see. Despite his best efforts to calm down, Alex's heart was already speeding up, and he could feel that icy feeling that meant his instincts would take over. Calm down.

"Try to block us," said Mongoose.

Alex bit his lip, trying furiously to calm down. He didn't do well in darkness. It brought back too many memories...

He bit down on a yelp a second later as one of the men hit his shoulder. Alex twisted his body and lashed out in the general direction, but he hit only air.

"Concentrate," said Jackal. "Breathe. Listen for us moving around."

He got hit on his arm, and Alex punched out again where the hit had come from. "Stop hitting me!"

"It's part of the exercise," Mongoose took over. "You're not calm."

"I wonder why," Alex said sarcastically, cursing as one of them stepped on his foot. How were they doing that without him seeing them? There could be anything in the dark. They could be pointing a gun at him. The spy could be there, just waiting to take him out. He was helpless, there was nothing he could do...

"Focus!" Jackal said loudly as somebody punched Alex in the shoulder again. Alex looked around him wildly, trying to find where they were coming from, but his mind kept listing the ways he could die at that very moment.

Stop, he told himself, and took a few long, deep breaths. "Good," said Mongoose. "Keep breathing. Can you sense us moving?"

Be calm, be in control. Breathe, calm, control. He kept repeating the three words to himself as he forcibly calmed his body down. They kept attacking him, more gently, but he didn't react. He closed his eyes and centered himself, remembering his old lessons. Breathe, calm, control. You are in charge.

If the light had been on, L-Unit wouldn't have recognized the ugly look on Alex's face. He was cold, hardened, his expression more suited to a weathered spy than a teenage boy.

"We're placing our feet lightly," said Jackal. "But you should hear the floor creak beneath us." He presumably took a few steps to illustrate, and Alex memorized the sound it made. "We're wearing typical clothing, can you hear it move through the air? I'm waving my hands around." There was a faint swishing noise. "If you concentrate, you should be able to see the outline of our shapes as we move around. I'm walking back and forth, can you see me?"

"No," Alex said, though he could pick out a few shifting shadows.

Pelican added his opinion. "We'll be doing this every day until you can dodge our hits," he said, and Alex cried out in pain as somebody drove a kick into his stomach. Fuck. "So you better learn quickly."

He was trying, goddammit, but there were four of them, and he was trying to keep to a wall to limit how they could attack him. Alex tried to let his instincts take the lead, but he couldn't sense where the hits would be coming from in the darkness. He ducked and rolled and lashed out, but no matter what he tried, there always seemed to be another person where he ended up.

Alex was beginning to get competitive. He had been intending to be completely useless, but despite his best efforts, he couldn't get a hit on the men. This was humiliating, it was pathetic, and it was absolutely not acceptable. He had been trained, goddammit. He'd been good at this. Whether it was the months away from Scorpia that had made him lax or the panic attack he had managed to surpress, Alex didn't know. He remembered those hours locked in that one tiny cell, starving and thirsty and covered in bruises, and he shivered reflexively. He tried to focus his mind to his mission, per say, and turn off that part of his brain that was chaotically telling him to run and hide and curl up in a ball and never get up.

What could have been hours later, the light flipped on and Alex slid to the floor, absolutely exhausted and feeling completely ashamed of himself. As they kept getting hits on him, he'd started to lose morale and the situation had deteriorated until he was quite surprisingly close to tears. He should have done better, dammit! He was better than that! It was as if there was an obstruction in his brain, something preventing him from 'tapping in' to the side of him that was dangerous and lethal and trained.

L-Unit crowded around him. "That was awful," Jackal said, shaking his head, echoing Alex's own thoughts. "I thought somebody had trained you?"

"Not in the dark," Alex bit out, stretching his tired limbs. He resolutely avoided mention of Scorpia's sadistic torture. "Anyway, it's never pitch black."

Pelican squatted down next to Alex. "Oh really? What happens the next time you're in a building with no windows? The magic fairies are going to light them up for you?"

Alex gave him an ugly look, knowing the other man was right and hating him for it. God, his body was going to be sore tomorrow. Mongoose knelt on his other side and began running deft fingers over the bruises forming on his arms, for Alex had discarded his jacket long ago. "I'll get you ice for these."

"No, let him have them," said Pelican, waving his hand dismissively. "He'll regret being absolutely useless tomorrow morning."

"What's your problem?" Alex said heatedly. "Do you get off on hitting a kid, huh?"

Pelican's face darkened. "Don't you ever say that, boy."

"Well, since you seem to enjoy me in pain so much, what do you think I'd say?" Alex said combatively, trying to get Pelican to snap. Unfortunately, the man had higher restraint than most of the half crazed villains that Alex had experienced, and Pelican turned away without getting too upset. Alex shook his arm away from Mongoose's grasp and stood up. "This was a waste of time."

"Clearly not, since barely dodged any of our hits," Jackal pointed out. "Go to bed, Alex. We'll try this again tomorrow, and hopefully you'll try being calm long enough to actually learn something. Stop acting like your classmates."

* * *

><p><em>Fuck<em>. In bed, Alex was doing something he hated: he was sulking.

As stupid as it sounded, he'd thought the training would be easy. That had been humiliating and embarrassing, and he swore to himself that he would never be so awful at 'training' ever again. If he could just overcome his hesitation!

Screw pretending to be bad. They thought he was acting like his classmates? A cold smile crossed Alex's face. Oh, he'd show them. He'd show them, and they wouldn't know what to think.


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N: Hi guys! I'm sorry this took FOREVER. I moved into my new apartment (yay!) for college, and with the crazy bustle that goes along with it, I completely forgot about Alex.**

**Here he is, and he's not very happy. Newsflash: Alex is screwed up. L-Unit should find out why soon.**

**Enjoy! Thank you thank you thank you to all of my wonderful, lovely, creative reviewers! You all rock. **

* * *

><p>Breakfast was almost over by the time Alex realized that everybody was staring at him.<p>

Well, people were almost always staring at him, which was probably why he hadn't paid his surroundings much attention. Today, however, they were whispering and nudging each other and pointing, and he only really caught the added attention when he got up to refill his water glass.

Looking around him uncomfortably, he fiddled with the water spigot and stuck his glass under it. Why were they staring _today_? Was it Tom?

Water spilled over on his hand, and he swore as he flipped off the spigot. He was distracted today; distracted and hurting. He was exhausted, and his body ached. Damn L-Unit. He probably looked black and blue as he walked uncomfortably back to the table...which, he realized with a groan, was probably why people were staring.

Alex gingerly touched the puffy bruise on his face from where Jackal had gotten him. He was wearing a thin cotton full sleeve shirt and loose jeans to cover the other assorted bruises, but the one on his face was pretty bad. He couldn't _wait_ to hear what they were saying about this one.

As it turned out, he didn't have to wait long. As they milled around outside after breakfast, waiting for the group activity, Cameron sidled up next to Alex. His friend (or henchman, as Alex called him) Freddie followed obediently after the large boy. "Hey, Rider," said Cameron, reaching out with his finger. "What happened?" He poked Alex's face.

Alex batted the hand away. "Get your hands off me, Cameron, I might get the wrong idea."

Cameron reddened. Alex had long since expected the other boy's tastes leaned more towards men than women, and usually insinuating the boy was gay was enough to make him back off. "Get in another gang fight, Rider?"

Alex raised a cool eyebrow. "I wouldn't expect you to understand."

A couple people listening in grinned. Alex knew that would only fuel the rumors that he was part of a gang, but who the hell even cared? He would rather be thought of as a semi-dangerous drug member than a weakling. Cameron opened his mouth and frowned. "You're not tough enough to be in a gang," he said sneeringly. "You're just a piece of shit who can't win a bloody fight."

"You've discovered my secret," Alex said sarcastically. "Brilliant, Holmes."

Cameron leaned in close. "I'm not afraid of you, dipshit. Who decked you? I want to give them a thank you note."

"One of the SAS men," Alex said completely truthfully, backing away. It wasn't that he was scared - it was just that Cameron's breath smelled disgusting. "For mouthing off, so you better watch out."

Cameron grinned gleefully. "Even the soldiers hate you," he said tauntingly.

Alex shrugged, seemingly unconcerned. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw L-Unit, minus one person, approaching. "Do you think I care if the soldiers like me?"

"You should," said a new voice. Jackal. Dammit, how did they do that? People didn't usually sneak up on Alex so easily. He suppressed a flinch and turned to face the man.

Jackal didn't look so good himself, Alex noticed with inner glee. He had a few bruises littering his arms, easily visible due to his sleeveless shirt, and he looked bloody well tired. As did the rest of L-Unit, but they were talking in low voices a few feet away.

"Is _that_ the soldier that beat on you?" Cameron said, snorting. "God, Rider, you're such a pussy."

Jackal raised an eyebrow. "You think you could beat me, you fat little shit?"

Well, _that_ was a bit aggressive. Not that Alex didn't approve, but he gave Jackal a confused look, wondering what brought on the malice. The man avoided his eyes.

Cameron swelled indignantly. "_What_ did you say to me?"

"Dude, he's a soldier," muttered Cameron's friend, Fred. "Let's go."

Alex waited hopefully as Cameron glared angrily at Jackal, but to Alex's supreme disappointment, the bigger boy decided not to try his luck and instead slunk away.

Alex turned to look at Jackal.

"He's irritating," the man defended himself.

"Mature," Alex said in response, but he wasn't mad at _all_.

Jackal rolled his eyes and walked away. A few minutes later, the Sergeant came out of the mess hall and cleared his throat. Well conditioned by now, everybody shut up.

"Go with your units. Today you're going to complete another survival challenge. You all know that we tested the boys to see how they would respond to an unknown threat, and they failed. You're going to learn about identifying different bombs and gasses. Now go."

Alex groaned. Tom wasn't here to make it bearable, and he knew that this entire lesson was for his benefit. _It's useful_ _information_, he told himself firmly as he made his way over to L-Unit.

They didn't look at him as the other six members of the group assembled. "All right, you know that we're missing a member. He's fine, just recovering," said Frog.

"What happened to him?" Brooke asked.

Jackal snapped, "We knocked him out with gas, does it matter?"

"What kind of gas?" Alex said, sticking to his plan of pissing them off.

"Classified."

Alex widened his eyes. "If you tell me, would you have to kill me?"

Jackal did not look amused, but Colin snickered from next to Alex.

"Shut up, Rider," said Jackal. "Now, our unit is stationed in Building C, which is across the camp. We're going to jog there, and if you get left behind, you'll sit out."

"So we won't get to identify bombs?" Alex said as they began jogging. "That seems a bit unfair."

"Don't be slow," was his answer.

"Yeah, but what happens if there's a bomb and I don't recognize it because I didn't jog fast enough - "

"Then the world will celebrate the loss of a very annoying individual," Pelican drawled, next to Alex.

This made Jeremy laugh. "Oh, burn, Rider."

"You think I'm annoying? I'm hurt," Alex slipped in, but the venomous glare on Jackal's face made him grin, shut up, and run faster.

They thought he was annoying now? His grin widened. He hadn't even begun.

In the building, they sat in a circle. As Jackal explained tightly, they were to be given various items and were supposed to divine which ones were bombs. Well, it was a bit more technical than that, but even Alex - who had little-to-no experience in this area - could tell they were dumbing down the lecture for the kids.

That was not helpful. Alex narrowed his eyes as he tried to think of a plan. He needed the lecture in all its glory - it could literally save his life one day.

He raised his hand. "I don't get it."

Jackal rolled his eyes. "Shut up, Rider."

"Don't you just have to look for the red wire? That's what they do in films."

Frog stepped forward. "Are you _trying_ to be an idiot?"

"No, it comes naturally," interjected Jeremy.

Alex shrugged. "I just don't _understand_," he said plaintively. "Can you talk slower?"

Jackal pinched his nose, breathed out, and resumed his lecture in a slower voice. Alex gave him about thirty seconds before his hand shot up again. _"What?"_ Jackal snapped.

"But now I don't understand the beginning," Alex whined. He was trying very hard not to laugh, as the identical expressions of exasperation on L-Unit's faces were, in a word, amusing.

"Okay, that's it," said Mongoose, who had been keeping quiet since then. "Let's have a little talk outside, shall we?" Score. Alex tried to look chastised as he followed Mongoose outside. Once the door closed, the man turned on him. "What the hell is that all about?"

"This isn't helping anyone!" Alex shot back, dropping his little-kid act. "If you're going to teach me useful things, teach me _right_."

Mongoose opened his mouth, but shut it a second later, looking thoughtful. "I see your point."

"Thank you," Alex said in relief. Mongoose frowned to himself as he thought, but a second later he opened the door again.

"I'm going to re-explain things to Rider so that his thick skull can understand," Mongoose said, looking appropriately annoyed. "We'll do gas while you do bombs, and then we'll switch."

Alex could tell the other members didn't quite understand, but Mongoose collected a few canisters and shut the door again. "Where are we going?"

"There's a room on the other side of the building," said Mongoose, beginning to walk. "Okay. Gasses. There are a lot of ways to identify what gasses are poisonous or not, and the effects of them..."

Alex listened intently, forgoing his plan to be annoying. He knew when important information was being imparted, and this was most definitely important.

* * *

><p>Later that day, as Alex walked towards where the teachers were staying, he tried to figure out what attitude to have. He didn't really know what they'd been told, so should he act like a schoolboy? A hardened spy? Sarcasm, or professionalism? Should he be immature?<p>

Was Mr. Bray even allowed to tell people about him? What the hell was that all about? Alex was willing to bet that if the Sergeant knew he was about to undergo the teacher's inquisition, he would not be pleased. Alternately, since the Sergeant seemed hell-bent on disregarding Alex's safety for his own little schemes (hmm, and didn't _that_ sound familiar), it was possible the Sergeant would be pleased.

It was definitely not helping that he was still aching from last night, and that when he'd tried to visit Tom in the morning, his friend had been knocked out cold. Dammit, he didn't want to deal with all of this! Where the bloody hell was MI6 when he needed them?

Thinking about MI6 brought to mind K-Unit, which didn't help Alex's mood. Apparently, they expected him to magic up their cellphone number and then do what? Call them? What good would that do? Alex had no earthly idea where Scorpia's new headquarters were, or who the head was. He had no new information. Why would they even want to call him?

He groaned to himself as he tortured himself with all of these questions. That was all his life was made up of now: questions, about Scorpia, about K-Unit, about L-Unit, about the Sergeant, about everything.

"Hey, Alex, where are you going?"

Alex half turned. It was Harrison, holding a beaten up soccer ball he'd clearly just filched from somewhere. "I have to talk to the teachers."

Harrison furrowed his eyebrows. "Why?"

Alex shrugged a shoulder. "I dunno, but I couldn't really say no, could I?"

The other boy grinned a little. "Especially if Ms. Matchett is there, have you ever had her?"

"No, why?"

"Man, she's such a bitch! I had her for history, and she was pretty damn mean, let me tell you."

Alex winced sympathetically. "She sounds awful. At least you never had Mr. Michaels."

"For maths? We were in the same class last year, remember? He was a mean little bastard, wasn't he?"

Alex smiled at the memory of their old teacher and deepened his voice. "Mr. Rider! Stop staring out the window! If you actually applied yourself, you may not fix people's loos for a living!"

"Do you want to fix their toilets?" Harrison continued in the same voice. "Because that's all you'll be good for if you can't even solve for x!"

The two of them snickered. Alex had missed most of last year, but he remembered Mr. Michaels all right.

"You should try to sneak away after they're done talking to you," said Harrison, straightening and tossing the ball up and down. "We'd like you there."

Alex stared. "...Thanks."

Harrison gave a nod and started jogging away. Alex watched him go, a bit befuddled. He knew that Colin had apparently decided to befriend him, but it was weird that Harrison had invited him as well. Shaking his head, Alex continued on. He was probably going to be late, but oh bloody well.

* * *

><p>Mr. Bray looked around him nervously.<p>

In truth, he wasn't the only one.

His fellow teachers didn't know what to think. He didn't either. He knew he shouldn't have told anybody, but he'd been so shell-shocked on returning from the Sergeant's office that he'd had to get it off his chest somehow, and how was he supposed to know that Helena Harris would promise to keep it a secret and promptly tell that bastard Kevin Michaels?

The news had spread like wildfire, of course, which had the wonderful effect of making all of the teachers too afraid to approach Alex. Mr. Bray knew that it wasn't fair to Alex to place him in the spotlight like this, but he was afraid that the teachers would tell their kids and spouses, and then where would he be? He had broken the Official Secrets Act. He needed them to understand that they couldn't tell anybody what happened, and he needed them to realize that Alex wasn't a monster.

In truth, Mr. Bray was hugely uncomfortable with the idea of a _teenage spy. _He had half a mind to call his lawyer friend and see if it was even legal. His personal feelings aside, though, he had a duty to his student, and how could Alex ever return to school if his teachers thought he'd kill them if they gave him a bad grade?

It was a terrible mess, but he had no choice, and so when Mr. Bray saw Alex through the window, he quickly made his way outside to warn the boy what was about to happen.

* * *

><p>Alex stared at Mr. Bray. "They think I'll do <em>what<em> for a good grade?"

Mr. Bray flushed. "Well, they never really knew you," he said, covering for the absolute _stupidity_ of his fellow teachers. Alex wanted to groan out loud. The students were bad enough - excepting a few, which reminded him he hadn't checked on Tom - but he'd expected the teachers to be better, more mature. Mr. Bray hadn't really responded too badly.

"Yeah," Alex replied, "But do they really think I'd _kill_ them for a good grade? Who do they think I am?"

"A teenager that's recruited by MI6," Mr. Bray said pointedly.

He scrunched his nose. "I see your point."

Mr. Bray opened the door for Alex and the two walked in. Immediately, there was a hush. Alex felt extremely uncomfortable as all eyes turned to him. Hell, he didn't know half these teachers, and the ones he did know, he disliked. There were a couple good ones, like Ms. Hays, his chemistry teacher, but most of them were mean and prejudiced against him. If the _science teacher_ could forgive him for supposedly blowing up the lab, couldn't the other teachers? It was ridiculous. Like children, all of them.

"Okay, everyone, quiet down," Mr. Bray said unnecessarily. Alex gave him a look. He cleared his throat and carried on. "As you all know, this is Alex Rider. Um, some of you expressed...concerns about his, well...occupation, and he generously agreed to answer some questions!"

_Oh, god_. Alex tried to put on a benign smile. The teachers looked at him suspiciously. "Have you ever killed anyone?" A gruff voice asked rudely.

Alex tensed. Mr. Michaels. Alex briefly considered answering either 'Classified' or 'I'd tell you, but I'd have to kill you,' but Mr. Bray gave him a pleading look and he instead tried to look non-threatening and lied convincingly, "No! Of course not!"

Who was the first person Alex had killed, indirectly or directly? He didn't want to think about it, though if he tried, he could picture that certain person's image on the back of his eyelids.

The teachers looked a bit more reassured. The next question was, predictably, "Why are you an agent?"

Now, wasn't that a tricky one. There was no way that Alex was going to voluntarily explain the tangled mess of deception and blackmail that had resulted in Alex signing up-slash-getting forced into MI6. Instead, he said coolly, "They offered, I accepted."

"What is it, exactly, that you _do_?"

"Paperwork," Alex deadpanned, completely serious, amusing himself as the teachers gave each other little nervous looks.

"Paperwork," repeated Michaels.

Alex rolled his eyes. "Sometimes, I even get to use my telescope to actually spy on people," he said, widening his eyes and feigning excitement. Mr. Bray gave him an exasperated look, which Alex ignored. Mr. Bray shouldn't have spilled the truth anyway; Alex was just doing damage control. "They said they'll even train me to go on missions when I'm eighteen."

"Is that so," said Mrs. Harris, who gave Mr. Bray a cold look. "I was under the impression that the job was dangerous."

"Dangerous?" Alex wiggled his fingers. "Man, I get so many papercuts, and I'm not allowed to leave unless I finish all my filing. But it's so cool, I get to see all the real live agents!"

"So you don't go on missions."

Alex shook his head, trying to look suitably crushed. Maybe piling on the lies wasn't the best way to deal with the situation, but what was he supposed to do? Reveal to all of them that he was a live agent? As if. He wasn't an idiot. "I _wish_. How cool would that be?"

"Why do you have a bruise on your face?"

Here, Alex hid an unpleasant smile as an opportunity presented itself to him. "Uh, I don't think I should say. I, um, fell."

No teacher fell for that excuse. "What happened?" One of them pressed. Alex thought it was the guidance counselor.

"Cameron hit me, okay?" Alex burst out. He wasn't a good person. He couldn't resist the urge to get that brute into trouble. "But don't tell him I told you, please, he'll murder me, he told me he'd knock me out if I told - "

"I'll take care of it," said the aforementioned teacher grimly. "Don't worry. He won't come near you."

_Why thank you_. Alex smiled gratefully, and there was a lull before the questions started up again.

"Why are you gone from school so much?"

Here Alex looked down and tried to look stony and cold. It wasn't hard. Remembering what Tom (_Tom, dammit, was he okay?)_ had told him, he pretended to blink away a tear. "I'm sorry," he said despondently, "It just gets too hard to get out of bed sometimes, you know, with my dad and mum and uncle gone. I just feel like nobody cares."

_Take that, MI6_. Alex privately thought he should deserve an award for his acting as the softer teachers gathered around him to persuade him that they did care. This was probably not going to make Mr. Bray popular, but Alex's job came first, and he wasn't above lying. Now, instead of thinking he was a problem child, Alex hoped they'd think he was just misunderstood and acting out for attention. He'd much rather be "killed with kindness" then, you know, killed with a big scary gun.

Sometimes, Alex mused, the MI6 should listen to him on how to resolve situations. Maybe he'd suggest that he take over Blunt's job next time he saw the man. Give him some entertainment in the day.

* * *

><p>Tom blinked blearily as he opened his eyes.<p>

Wow. The ceiling was dirty, and his head hurt like a _bitch_.

Yawning, he lifted his head to look around. Where was he? Was he at home? He blinked a couple times as his memory returned slowly to him. He was in Wales. There had been a training exercise or something - Alex had been worried - he'd investigated - where was he now?

He squinted and tried to sit up, but to his horror, his body wouldn't cooperate. Tom wiggled his fingers. They didn't move either. Toes? They were stationary. The only parts of his body he could move were his head, his neck, and apparently his chest, as he was breathing fine - was he paralyzed?

Tom did the reasonable thing and started screaming bloody murder, shouting for help. "Help! Help! I can't move!"

No! He couldn't be paralyzed, he had _things to do_. He hadn't lost his virginity yet! Who would give it up for a guy who might not even be able to get _it_ up? This was unfair. He had plans, dammit! He had life plans that involved a lot of movement. If he was paralyzed, why couldn't he at least be sitting up? He couldn't watch the telly like this, or go to school, or do anything. And where the _fuck_ was he?

"Boy, calm down!"

Tom tried to see who the voice was coming from, but he couldn't lift his head high enough to see. "I'm paralyzed! I'm paralyzed! Help!"

"You're not bloody well paralyzed, you dolt," said the voice.

"Well, I can't _bloody well _move," Tom snapped back, "Or weren't you listening?"

"You teenagers think you're so smart."

"Well, clearly you can't tell that I'm paralyzed, so I don't really think you're one to be talking."

The voice groaned, and a second later, a face entered his field of vision. "You are annoying," the man observed. "I'm never going to have children."

"Good for you, but I'm paralyzed, isn't that more important?" Why wasn't he man paying attention?

The man looked briefly irritated and leaned more over Tom. "We numbed your reflexes for a reason."

"What? Why? Are you trying to hurt me?" Tom took a deep breath and started screaming. It was the only reasonable thing to do, since Alex was probably nearby trying to rescue him - that was how the films went, after all. "Help! HELP! They're trying to attack me, help! Am I a scorpion? LET ME GO!"

"You're not a scorpion, shut the hell up!" The man shouted over Tom's own yells. The boy subsided. "Did those drugs addle your brain? Can't you remember anything?"

Tom opened his mouth to speak, but he shut it pensively. _Think, think, think_. The last thing he could remember was... "Jesus Christ, there was a bomb!"

"_Definitely_ never having kids," the man muttered to himself. He shook his head, still leaning over in Tom's line of sight. "Okay. The abridged version for the kiddie - it's like story time. It wasn't a bomb, it let out poisonous gas, and because you were stupid enough to get close to it - "

"I was seeing what the problem was!" Tom shot back, ignoring the story time comment.

"Shut up, Sherlock. You inhaled a lot of the gas. The gas would have affected all of your nerve endings and reflexes, I assume you're too stupid to understand the science, and if we hadn't forcefully paralyzed you, you would've died. You're welcome," the man said snarkily.

"So I _am_ paralyzed," Tom said triumphantly. The man groaned and told him it would wear off in four hours. What was he supposed to do for four hours?

Tom hadn't meant to be gassed, but it had smelled funky, and Alex had obviously been shaken by something. He may be a spy, but he couldn't lie to Tom for shit, so Tom had decided to take a look around. He hadn't thought there would be _gas_. How would that even get past security? It wasn't his fault that the SAS was so bloody useless.

"Wait, come back!" Tom shouted towards the general direction of the door. "You can't leave me here for four hours!"

"Aw, I feel so bad for you," came the sarcastic reply. "Shouldn't have tried to play detective, huh? That's what you get."

"I'm not going to be quiet," Tom warned loudly. "I'm going to keep talking."

"You do that."

"I'm hungry. And thirsty. And I have to take a piss. How do I pee when I'm paralyzed?"

"Shut _up_, kid!"

Tom raised his eyebrows. Is that how it was going to be? He had four hours. He had to pass the time _somehow_. He had a feeling the man would hate him after, but who really cared?

Tom took a deep breath and began to sing.

* * *

><p>Alex was ready.<p>

He had forced himself to sleep an hour earlier, though the others had snickered at his behavior, and had woken up an hour earlier as well. A few of the boys were still awake, and Alex sat motionlessly in bed, trying to breathe deeply and pick out details in the dark. It was easier in the room, which had windows to let the bright moon stream through, but he still pushed himself. He listened for rustles, tried to predict which boys would roll over, and which would move their arms or legs. He would _not_ let L-Unit humiliate him again.

When the time came, Alex repeated the same preparations as last time and walked silently out the door. As he made his way to the meeting place, he tried to focus his eyes and adjust to the dark. He spotted a man waiting for him and narrowed his eyes as he tried to guess who it was. Pelican, judging by the man's wiry frame.

"Hi, Pelican," Alex called out as he approached. Pelican, who was about to flick on a flashlight, paused. Alex could barely make out the man raising an eyebrow.

"Has our little agent developed night-ray vision overnight?"

Alex smiled coldly. No, he wasn't going to be an expert tonight, but he fully intended to land some hits of his own. "I like that," he said coolly, "You should refer to me as Agent at all times."

"Predictably obnoxious, as always," Pelican commented sarcastically. "One day it's going to get you killed."

"Or save my life," Alex retorted, thinking about all the times that he'd gotten information simply by pissing the other person off enough to the point where they accidentally let something slip. When people were angry, they were careless, and Alex had long since learned to exploit that.

"Stalling?" Pelican asked.

"No, let's get right to it."

* * *

><p>Pelican melted into the darkness and watched the boy curiously. He had instinct, natural talents, that much was obvious. It was clear in the way he positioned his body, loosely but ready to strike out, his center of balance low. Alex wasn't freaking out like yesterday, and it was proving to be advantageous for him. Pelican winced as the boy lashed out and struck Frog on the nose. Ha. The kid was getting better, or maybe it was luck. Whatever the reason, this was very interesting - very interesting indeed.<p>

* * *

><p>Alex couldn't see the men, exactly. It wasn't as if he had miraculously learned to see in the dark. But today, something was different. His vision was sharper, almost. He could hear more. He'd managed to calm himself down and some of that icy precision that Scorpia had taught him to embrace was creeping back into his movements. He was understandably rusty, but he intended on improving.<p>

Unbeknownst to him, his lips stretched in a feral smile as he caught sight of one of the men trying to get at him from his left. Alex deliberately turned his head to the right and punched out blindly, allowing the attacker to move in, and then lashed out brutally with his foot. He caught the man by surprise, prompting a muffled curse.

_Absolutely useless? I'll show them absolutely useless._

* * *

><p>The next day, as Alex finally obtained permission from the Sergeant to go visit Tom, he found himself walking very reluctantly up to the hospital. It wasn't that he didn't want to see Tom - he did - it was that he wasn't sure Tom wanted to see him.<p>

If Alex hadn't been so _stupid_, Tom would be okay. He should have made sure everybody got out of the cabin first. It was his responsibility to look after the teenagers, even if half of them were little bastards. Alex hadn't even bothered to make sure they all got out before he ran to the Sergeant, and he hadn't even gotten help? Tom had almost died, and it was entirely his fault.

Licking his dry lips anxiously, he walked in the door. A man was sitting behind the desk, face reddened, viciously using a pocket knife to whittle a piece of wood. When he saw Alex, he glared. "What do _you_ want?"

"To visit my friend, Tom Harris," Alex said cautiously. This man looked dangerous.

To his surprise, an expression of pure relief spread over the man's face. "Oh, thank the _lord_," he breathed out, pointing to a door. "That little piece of shit has been driving me mad!"

Despite himself, Alex had to snicker. Tom was an intensely social person, who didn't do well alone. Alex could only imagine the boy's reaction if he was confined to a hospital bed with only a SAS man for company.

"You think it's funny? He _sang_ for a fucking _hour_, what the hell is wrong with him?"

"He was dropped on his head as a baby," Alex said, straightfaced.

Tom's voice came from next door. "Thanks a lot, did you know I can hear you?"

Alex inhaled sharply, nodded at the man, and walked in. Tom was sitting up in bed, holding a magazine. He was garbed in white hospital robes, looked tired and pale, but otherwise seemed perfectly alright. "Hi, Tom."

Tom put down the magazine and wiggled his fingers. "I can move!"

Alex frowned. "You couldn't?"

"Oh hell, it was the craziest thing, that moron out there numbed my senses so that I'd be paralyzed, I couldn't move for four damn hours!" Tom said loudly, adopting an injured expression. There was a muffled curse from outside, but both boys ignored it.

"You're okay, though, right?" Alex said, voice low as he leaned in.

Tom grinned easily. "I'm right as rain. I don't even have a battle scar or something to show the ladies. I'll be out of here tomorrow."

Alex breathed an audible sigh of relief. "God, I'm so sorry."

"Sorry?" Tom narrowed his eyes. "It was a training exercise."

Alex bit his lip uncomfortably. He wasn't sure how much Tom remembered, but it would be easy to pin the whole thing on the SAS. He wanted to, but inside, he knew that it was his fault that Tom was in the hospital. "No it wasn't," he said softly. "I just said that to get everybody out. Someone put in the gas to kill all of us."

"So you saved us," Tom pointed out, ruffling his short black hair.

"If I had been smarter, you wouldn't have gotten hurt."

"And if you had been stupider, we all would have died."

"That's not how it is."

"Maybe you are stupid, since that's exactly how it is," Tom said, giving Alex a hard stare. "Don't go all angsty on me, really, my delicate constitution can't handle it."

Alex was about to continue apologizing, but Tom's flippant comment made him pause. "Are you sure those drugs didn't screw up your brain?"

"Perfectly," Tom said, picking up the magazine again. "Dude, you should see the kinds of things these men read! It's all guns and bombs and shit."

"You're _sure_ you're okay?"

"Alex, if you ask me that one more time, I'm going to start wondering if _you're_ okay."

"Point taken," Alex said, sitting on the side of the bed to look at the magazine with Tom. He was still unsure, and he still blamed himself, but he'd let it go - for now.

* * *

><p>It had been six days since they had learned of Alex, and L-Unit still wasn't sure as a whole what to think. One thing they could agree on, however, was that Alex was <em>scary<em>.

Sitting in their hut before it was time for Alex to show up again, they tried to figure out what to do next. The darkness training had gone surprisingly well - the kid picked things up quickly, so it seemed. All four of them were nursing bruises from his retaliation. Alex wasn't able to seek them out preemptively, but once they were within his range, he still managed to get them with unerring accuracy.

"He's determined, to say the least," mumbled Jackal.

Frog snorted. "I'll say," he said, holding his arm protectively. "It took me a month to learn how to do what he's doing."

Mongoose nodded fervently. He remembered that training vividly. "We should keep working on him in the dark," he said, turning to look at Pelican, who was staring idly out of the window. "He's starting to pick it up."

"He needs to be able to find us," agreed the other man. "But we shouldn't do another night exercise after this one. We should alternate."

"He also should learn how to fight bigger men," Jackal said, remembering their initial sparring after he'd first learned the news. "He's decent, but he could be better."

None of the other three men noticed Pelican hiding a smile. "Excellent idea," the thin man said dryly. "We could do one on one combat, and then four on one."

Frog frowned uncomfortably. "Four on one?"

"You think the people after him are going to wait in line to kill him?" Jackal said sharply. The younger man flushed and subsided, and Jackal nodded slowly. "One on one tonight, then."

* * *

><p>Alex cracked his knuckles as he walked towards L-Unit's cabin for their nightly lesson. He was picking up the hang of this in the dark exercise. He was planning to go on the offensive tonight...sure, he'd have bruises tomorrow, but he already did. Luckily, it was beginning to cool down, and nobody questioned if he wore light long sleeved shirts. He could always pretend to be cold; they'd probably believe it, thinking he was a pussy.<p>

When he got there, Frog was waiting outside for him. They kept rotating, so Alex gave a cool nod to the SAS man.

"Hey, Alex," Frog greeted, smiling tightly. "Feeling okay?"

Alex gave him a weird look. This was new. "Um, yeah, feeling fine."

"Anything hurting too badly? You know, cuts, bruises, sprains?"

"I'm sorry, are you secretly Mongoose in there?" Alex asked sarcastically as they began walking slowly.

Frog gave a nervous little chuckle. "Yeah, I guess I'm acting weird. But, I dunno, you've been working hard lately. I know I couldn't have done this shit as a kid."

Alex shrugged uncomfortably. "I'm fine, I think I'm getting better."

"Oh, you are," he hurried to reassure Alex. He paused a second and randomly continued, "When I was a teenager, I was a total shrimp - captain of the maths club, shorter than all the girls, all skin and bones, braces and glasses."

The image this statement conjured up made Alex snicker, and Frog laughed along as well. "Now you're a soldier."

Frog grinned, suddenly self-conscious. "I got accepted into this fancy-ass university, and suddenly I decided, I was fed up with being beat up on all the time."

"Now you can beat people up," Alex said, trying to figure out where this had come from. "Not that I don't enjoy hearing about your life, what brought this on?"

Frog ruffled his hair and looked at the ground. "I dunno," he said, reddening slightly. "I just thought...I don't want you to hate us for this."

"For training me? You could be saving my life," Alex said grudgingly, knowing the training was unhelpful even if he disliked being the object of scrutiny by four men who weren't exactly inclined to be nice.

Frog shrugged. "It's just...you don't deserve to be beat on either. So whatever shit you're in...make sure you win."

"Oh, I intend to," Alex said truthfully as they approached the usual building. Frog gave him a half smile and jogged ahead, disappearing into the door while Alex walked more slowly. That had been a very strange conversation, but not an unwelcome one. Frog was a good sort, he decided. All in all, L-Unit was much better than K-Unit had ever been. Even if Pelican gave him the creeps, and Jackal was wickedly nasty at times.

Inside, Alex's sharp eyes immediately caught the tense postures of Frog, Mongoose and Jackal. Pelican looked anticipatory, but not tense. Jackal looked...determined, Alex decided, and Frog and Mongoose just looked uncomfortable.

Alex smiled toothily, practically baring his teeth. "Don't want me kicking your asses in the dark today?"

"We thought we'd try something new."

"That's so smart. Variety is the spice of life," Alex continued obnoxiously. Strange conversation with Frog aside, he hadn't given up on his plan to irritate L-Unit into submission.

He noted with some satisfaction that all four members simultaneously rolled their eyes.

"I'm glad you think so," Jackal continued, apparently deciding to ignore Alex. "We're going to do one on one combat."

Alex grinned, struck a wild karate pose, and yelled "Hyaahh!" L-Unit flinched, staring at him like he was insane.

"What on _earth_ are you doing?" Mongoose found his voice.

"Haven't you lot watched karate films? What do you _do_ at sleepaways? Paint each other's nails?" Alex said, dropping the pose. He gave an exaggerated sigh. "_Lame_."

L-Unit exchanged looks, and Jackal continued reluctantly. "When you fought me last, you had some weaknesses. Today, you'll be fighting Frog."

Alex swung his gaze over to Frog, momentarily abandoning his plan to be obnoxious. That some-what explained their short conversation. He saw Frog looking uncomfortable and grinned sharply. It was obvious they didn't know he had held back when fighting Jackal. It was time to show them what he was _really_ made of, since they obviously still believed he was useless.

"Let's get started then," Alex said, pausing. "Unless you're afraid."

Frog's face reddened. "You wish," he said, not looking quite so awkward. "Bring it."

"Oh, I will," Alex said, eyes tracking Frog intently.

"I bet I can get you to say mercy in five minutes," Frog said, lashing out halfway through his sentence. Alex, who had been expecting something like this, ducked instinctively. His vision sharpened as he took in the situation. Jackal, Mongoose and Pelican backing off to create a half-circle. Frog trying to get his back against the wall.

Alex aimed a right cross at Frog's face, but the man blocked it and jammed his elbow into Alex's stomach. The wind knocked out of him, Alex grabbed the man's arm and twisted, using his foot to hook around Frog and upset the man's balance. Frog caught himself before he fell, but that gave Alex the opportunity to land a two fingered jab.

Frog swore and charged at Alex. From there, he lost track of the moves executed. A block here, a hit there. Frog was clearly pressing him against the wall, and Alex decided to roll with it, using it as support for his back as he jumped and kicked Frog with both feet.

Precision. Balance. Focus.

* * *

><p>He was almost methodical in the way he fought, Jackal noticed with a kind of impressed awe. He didn't seem to be tiring, his sharp brown eyes catching every one of Frog's moves. He was a very offensive fighter, using turning everything into a hit or kick or jab of some kind. It was good in this case, as he was clearly winning, but bad because he was also suffering attacks that he he could have blocked if he wasn't trying to attack.<p>

Creative, too. He was using the wall to great effect, using it to protect him, to push against, to keep himself steady. Frog pushed Alex against the wall and held him there, hands loosely wrapped around his neck. "I win," he said pantingly, starting to step back -

And there! Jackal blinked in surprise as Alex managed to slam Frog against the wall. The man was years older and much bigger, yet Alex had gained the upper hand.

From there, it was almost painful to watch. He was blindingly fast and very effective, almost emotionless. If Jackal had been a weaker man, he would have said it was scary to see the boy with the face of a hard agent, ruthlessly going for the kill.

And he _was_ going for the kill. All the watching members of L-Unit paled as one as Alex attempted a move that could have been fatal. Luckily, Frog blocked it, but Jackal gave a nod to Pelican, and the two stepped forward.

"Rider, stop!" Jackal barked authoritatively. Alex's eyes were dazed now, and he seemed to be in his own little world.

Behind him, Mongoose swore to himself. "Get him the _fuck _off of Frog, _now_," the man commanded.

Jackal didn't question the order. He was the unit leader, but he knew Mongoose wouldn't have spoken to him like that if it wasn't serious; the man hardly ever swore. He grabbed Alex's arm, but the boy scraped his foot painfully down Jackal's shin. Swearing, he gave another nod to Pelican, and the two jerked Alex back harshly, throwing him down away from Frog.

The SAS man looked up, spluttering and sweating. "What the hell is wrong with him?"

Mongoose knelt next to Alex and murmured softly to him. Jackal checked over Frog. His youngest member looked a little shell-shocked by the ferocity of the attack, and Jackal didn't blame him. This was a new development, and one they would have to talk about very soon.

* * *

><p>Alex lay panting on the floor.<p>

He couldn't explain, though Mongoose was currently asking him, what had happened. One second Frog had won, and the next second all Alex could think about was suffocating to death, and he had just reacted.

When he fought, most of it was instinctive. He saw opportunities and he took them. A second ago, he hadn't even been thinking - he had been trying to _kill_ Frog, and that terrified him.

"Did it feel like you were losing control?" Mongoose said in what was apparently supposed to be a soothing voice. Alex blinked, looking around wildly, as he fought to make sense of what happened. He'd snapped. He'd become faster, stronger, and showed them the extent of his capabilities. _Yes, _he felt like answering, _yes, I feel out of control, what the hell do you think I'm feeling_?

But instead, he mentally reached outside, found his feelings, balled them up and _shoved_ - shoved them down, secreted them away, and smiled brightly up at Mongoose. "That was a mistake," he said, wiping his forehead. "Man, Frog, I'm so sorry! I just lost it for a second, mate, you okay?"

Mongoose gave him a sharp, angry look. "Shut up, Alex."

"Whoa, cool it," Alex said, smiling artificially as he held up his hands in mock-defense. "I'm sorry, it was an honest mistake, right, Frog?"

Frog was giving him a wary look, but as Alex tried to look apologetic, he shrugged and said, "Yeah, I guess."

"I'm so sorry," Alex said again, pulling himself to his feet. He gave an abashed smile to the other members of L-Unit. "I've just been really tired lately, can we end this one early so I can catch up on sleep?"

Mongoose started to protest, but a cool look from Jackal quelled it. They seemed to communicate something in one long, frozen look, before Jackal turned to him with a smile that was as fake as Alex's. "Sure thing, same time tomorrow?"

Alex nodded, and he beat a hasty retreat.

Outside, he swallowed shakily and wiped his forehead. He couldn't afford to lose control like that. What was he supposed to do now?


	7. Chapter 7

The spy pursed his lips thoughtfully.

Reclining lazily on the branches of one tree, he let his binoculars fall from his face. His current assignment was playing football with his friends rather skillfully, and even from his position, the spy's keen ears picked up faint cheering. Reaching into an inner pocket, the spy brought out a small notebook. Flipping to a new page, he began writing an encoded report on the past couple of days. The spy preferred not to use digital means to store information; who knew when a talented computer hacker would come along and compromise his security? Flash-drives could be stolen, files copied, email read - but he always kept his notebook by his side, and when he finished the job, he stored it in a safety deposit box that even Scorpia was unaware he had.

The spy was nothing if not careful; after all, he was Scorpia's finest, even if they insisted on sending him to complete menial tasks that a recruit could handle just fine. In this case, though, the spy grudgingly accepted that his assignment was proving to be very interesting indeed. Alex Rider was fascinating, an enigma of sorts, a curious mixture of teenage rebellion and MI6 spy.

Raising the binoculars to his eyes, the spy watched Rider be pounded on the back by his friends, presumably having just scored a goal. The spy noted the expression of pain that slid along Rider's face before it was replaced by a wide, easy grin. The kid was a good actor, that was for sure, but he couldn't hide from the spy.

The spy neatly recorded a few more notes. He should be sending his reports to his superiors, but he was growing displeased with Scorpia. They were hardly as effective and efficient as they had been years ago, when he'd been attracted to their unchallenged power. Now, they were getting defeated by children, and MI6 had a growing file sitting protected in Britain - not to mention the governments of other European countries. Germany in particular was growing very suspicious. They were wasting time trying to scout out Alex Rider, wanting to induct him - _again_ - into Scorpia. The spy had only been watching Rider for a few weeks, and even _he_ could tell it wouldn't work. The boy would never be attracted to Scorpia, no matter what lie they told him this time. He also would be remarkably easy to kill. MI6 had effectively rendered Rider a sitting duck by placing him in Wales. One shot and he'd be dead.

The spy had tried the gas trick to see how Rider would react. He was under orders not to harm Rider, only to observe until he received further instruction, but Scorpia had made the mistake of sending one man to do the job. The spy knew for a fact that nobody was monitoring his progress - they had important things to worry about, namely the fact that MI6 was coming closer every day to shutting them down - and the spy had free reign to play with Rider however he liked.

What he saw so far intrigued him. The boy was skilled, this was obvious. The spy had been watching his training sessions, and nothing could disguise the instinctual way that Rider moved. With proper training, not the blundering around this 'L-Unit' was providing him, Rider could become a real asset, a force to be reckoned with. He was a good actor, not to mention delightfully resourceful. The spy often had to conceal a smile when Rider used the guise of being a teenager to manipulate others into doing what he wanted them too. He was also quite irritating, in a snarky way the spy could appreciate. He could see why Scorpia and MI6 both wanted him on their side.

He lifted the binoculars again to observe. Perhaps this Rider could be useful to him, for the spy had plans that were much bigger than anybody would expect.

* * *

><p>After the football game, Alex wiped sweat from his forehead, grinning at his teammates. His muscles were burning, protesting the hour and a half they'd spent working out and playing, but it was a pleasant feeling - the pain of accomplishment. His back, however, was aching, but Alex was very capable at ignoring pain.<p>

"This settles it, mate," said Harrison as they headed towards the showers to rinse off before the night activities. "You're going to join the team when we get back."

"When _are_ we getting back, anyway?" One of the boys asked. "It's been ages."

That was a question that Alex would very much like to know the answer to himself. They had been sent here to protect themselves, but as Alex was instructed not to do anything, and the SAS men were clueless about Scorpia, who was seeking out the spy? Certainly not K-Unit, who were in the middle of nowhere. He hadn't seen any action on MI6's part, but Alex hardly thought they'd leave everybody in Brecon Beacons without investigating the spy.

Shaking his head slightly, he tried to catch up on the conversation. His mind had been scattered lately, a niggling voice at the back of his head freaking out about the situation with L-Unit. What was he supposed to do, dammit? He would have to play it off like nothing happened, but how could he do that? Maybe he should acknowledge it...

_Stop it_, Alex told himself firmly, deliberately turning his attention back to his friends. He obviously couldn't take a shower in front of them, so Alex thought for a second about an excuse. It needed to be something that would take him a good ten, fifteen minutes.

"Blast, I forgot to take my pills," he said, slowing. That would give him a reason to take some pain medication for his back as well.

Colin glanced back. "Pills?"

"Yeah, I'm anemic," Alex lied easily, shrugging. "I need to take iron tablets twice a day to make sure I don't have an iron deficiency or something, I dunno."

"How long have you been anemic?"

"Oh, practically my whole life," Alex said, wondering if they'd buy it when he'd never taken any pills before. To his relief, the boys shrugged, clearly buying the story. Anemia was very common, which was partly why Alex chose it. "I have to go get the pills with Mr. Bray really quickly and I'll be right back."

"Go after you shower," Harrison pointed out.

Alex rolled his eyes. "It's stupid, but they make me keep my pills in the main office, and they don't let me take it after, er, three."

"Yeah, that is stupid. Okay, catch up, and if we're not in the showers, we're back in the room. "

Alex nodded and jogged off. Back at the barracks, he downed a couple pain pills and stretched, wincing as his back protested. No matter how hard he tried, his thoughts kept returning to L-Unit - what the hell should he _do_?

* * *

><p>The unit in question were, once again, thinking about Alex Rider. It was curious how their lives had so quickly and easily become entangled with him, this curious boy of which they barely knew anything about. His file had been slender, containing only the bare bones of the situation.<p>

Mongoose was the most worried out of the four, beating out Frog by a slim margin. The youngest member had a set of nasty bruises, and he kept looking around him nervously. He had almost died, so it was a perfectly understandable reaction.

Jackal fanned out the cards in his hand. They were playing poker, trading candy and other 'luxury' items that they had brought from home. He had his eyes set on a nice chocolate bar, courtesy of Pelican. Feeling pretty confident in his hand, he pushed forward a small bar of soap as his wager, not the nasty army type, but honest, good, actual soap. He looked up, expecting Mongoose to zero in on it, but the man was either doing a spectacular poker face, or he wasn't paying the least bit attention.

For Mongoose, it was the latter. He fingered his cards anxiously, absentmindedly adding a tin of mints to the pot when it was his turn. "What are we going to do about Rider?"

"You tell us, doctor," said Pelican, adding another chocolate bar to the mix and smirking at Jackal. He either had a very good hand, or was bluffing. "What's wrong with him?"

"It's probably post-traumatic stress," Mongoose mused outloud. "He's clearly been in situations where he was aiming to kill - I think something Frog did triggered the attack."

"Okay," Jackal continued, eyeing Pelican harshly, trying to get him to back off his chocolate. "Let's think about what happened."

"I have no idea," said Frog plaintively.

Pelican waved his cards around. "Obviously, you were fighting. Let's see. You pushed him against the wall - "

"And put your hands around his neck," Mongoose said, eyes narrowing. "He probably had a bad reaction to being strangled."

"I wasn't _trying_ to strangle him."

Jackal grinned in complete satisfaction as Frog reluctantly folded and picked up a beer instead. "Well, I should hope not."

Mongoose gave his unit leader an annoyed look. "_Anyway_, we ought to figure out how to deal with him now."

"We could ignore it - " said Pelican.

"He's obviously repressing something major, there were no accounts of therapy in his file," Mongoose said loudly over Pelican. "We should talk to him."

"Right, like he'd want to talk to us," Pelican argued, sitting up. "It's none of our business."

"He almost killed Frog," Mongoose said heatedly. "What if we hadn't been there? What if Frog hadn't fought him off? He needs help, now."

Jackal snuck some candy off the table while they argued, ripping the packet open with his teeth. "I agree with Mongoose," he said, popping a sweet into his mouth.

They turned to look at him. "So do I," Frog piped up, unsurprisingly.

Pelican sighed and leaned forward, lightly snatching the candy away from Jackal and pouring some into his own hand. "Well, if he talks, good luck - but I don't think he will."

Mongoose ignored that. He would make Alex talk. Bottling things up was dangerous for anybody, but especially for those involved in traumatic experiences. Alex had to talk, for his sake - and for theirs.

* * *

><p>Alex wandered around, not bothering to care where his feet led him. The part of his brain that was always watching kept him alert to an extent, although he was finding it difficult to keep scanning for signs of a watcher. To be honest, he had almost forgotten that there was a spy on the loose. Between night lessons with L-Unit and day exercises with his idiotic unit (unbearable, as Tom wasn't yet out of the hospital), Alex was too exhausted all the time to even contemplate Scorpia. MI6 had been suspiciously quiet, but he couldn't bring himself to care. If they wanted to conveniently forget about this whole mess of an operation, it would be their job to clean up any messes.<p>

After a second, he groaned to himself. That had been a rather cold thought. He cared, to some extent, about his fellow schoolmates, as one might care about animals in a zoo. He didn't want them to get hurt, and they were interesting to interact with from afar, but he didn't particularly want to be the one to have to take care of them. He wouldn't wish pain on any of them (true pain, that is, though he'd often uncharitably wished they would all just go jump off a damn cliff and leave him alone) when push came down to shove.

Now, with the added complication of L-Unit, Alex had no idea what to do. He'd never...lost it like that. Alex prided himself on his control. Even in terrible situations, close to death, he'd kept his head. It was why he was still alive. He had just been sparring with Frog, he should have kept a tighter lid on his emotions! Alex pursed his lips in angry contemplation as he kept walking, kicking up dust as he went. Whenever he fought, his world sharpened in that strange way that he couldn't quite explain: he picked out details, and time seemed to occur in little bursts of fast interspersed with the slow. As he'd discovered shortly after one of his later missions, it was nigh impossible for him to playfully fight, but he'd never completely snapped like that. He'd never tried to purposefully _kill _somebody.

Guilt. It wasn't a foreign emotion to Alex, but he knew he'd never get used to that awful, curling feeling that one got in their stomach, nor the urge to clench his toes in his shoes or swallow repeatedly. Whenever he felt guilty, he wanted to _do _something, absolve himself of it, forgive and forget and move the hell on. As such, his desire to avoid the conflict altogether was warring strongly with his need to make things right, and he wasn't sure - though he had a sneaking suspicion - as to which would win.

As it turned out, the most unlikely member of L-Unit made the choice for him, as a smirking Pelican dropped from a tree in front of Alex and indicated with a sharp nod for Alex to follow him.

Alex stared after Pelican's retreating figure. How the hell had he missed the man in the tree? L-Unit had a uniquely terrifying ability to melt into thin air, and not for the first time, Alex longed desperately to learn the secret behind it. "What - where are we going?" Alex yelled after Pelican, whose easy gait suggested that the man didn't quite care whether Alex followed him. Of course, this made Alex _want_ to follow him more, and so, muttering to himself, he set off after the manipulating bastard.

Despite himself, Alex was starting to like Pelican. There was something about his dry humor, sarcastic comments and disinterested, self confident air that attracted the younger boy. It was Pelican's "I don't give a shit" attitude that was the most appealing, for as much as Alex wished it wasn't so, it did burn slightly each time one of his schoolmates made a derisive comment towards him.

Jogging slightly to catch up, Alex walked alongside the man. "You know," he said conversationally, "It's considered common courtesy to speak to somebody when you jump from a tree in front of them."

"Is it?" Pelican answered, mimicking Alex's light, easy tone. "I must have missed that class in etiquette class."

"Pity, it's made you so awfully unrefined," Alex shot back drawlingly, the corner of his lips curving into an unwilling smile. Pelican wasn't acting like he was some sort of monster, and snarky banter was what Alex did best.

"There go my dreams of being a diplomat."

"You're a natural diplomat, though," Alex said sarcastically. "You've already made all of the kids love you."

Pelican actually gave a little half smile in acknowledgement, his version of 'touché,' and responded, "It's something about my utterly charming and winning personality, maybe."

"If by 'utterly charming,' you mean 'a complete berk,' then yes."

Reaching the now all-too-familiar warehouse, Pelican stopped in front of the door. "Such language from a child," he said chidingly. Then, without any apparent acknowledgement of his non sequitur, he said, "Mongoose is awfully curious about you."

"Oh, god," Alex said, switching topics effortlessly. "Reckon I can escape it?" He wasn't sure why, exactly, but he sensed that Pelican was on his side.

"Don't even try," the man advised. "One Mongoose's got his claws in a difficult problem, they won't ever come out."

Alex opened his mouth to ask something, and the reddened slightly and closed his mouth. Looking at the ground, he didn't reply, instead digging a small hole with his foot.

"What?" Pelican asked, obviously catching the nervous movement.

"Nothing."

"Just tell me," said the man. Alex looked up to see an unusually serious expression on the man's face. "I'm rooting for you, honestly."

This reminded Alex all too much of his previous conversation with Frog, and he couldn't help but wonder if this was a plan engineered to make him individually trust each member of L-Unit. If that was the plan, it wasn't working, as he just felt rather suspicious. Still, Pelican's piercing look let him know that the SAS man wasn't going to let this go, so Alex sighed and asked, rather childishly, "Are they mad at me?"

He shouldn't be asking that, it was weak and kiddish and he didn't care what they thought, but it relieved Alex nonetheless to have Pelican crack a small, surprised smile and say "Of course not."

He shouldn't care, but he did, which was worrisome in itself.

* * *

><p>Alex looked worried, Frog noticed as Pelican led him in the door of 'their' warehouse. He had every right to be. Even though the shit with Alex had creeped Frog out - he wasn't going to lie, he'd almost <em>died<em> at the hand of this kid - it wasn't really Alex's fault. Frog had talked a little with Mongoose, who'd explained the type of PTSD that he thought Alex had. Anybody who would lose their grip on reality during a simple sparring session had to have been through shit so messed up, Frog didn't want to think about it. So it wasn't Alex's fault, not really; Frog blamed that bloody MI6. How dare they mess with a kid's mind like that? So, he tried to twist his face into something resembling an encouraging smile, and to his pleasure Alex definitely noticed it and relaxed infinitesimally.

Although they often disregarded him as the youngest, Frog could be very observant, and he wondered at the look on Pelican's face. Though they'd been a unit for a couple of years, and Frog knew these three men better than he knew himself, Pelican would always be a bit of a mystery to him. Jackal and Mongoose were perfectly open about their pasts, as was Frog, but he'd always gotten the impression that something bad had happened to Pelican, something the other man wouldn't ever say.

Whatever had happened to Pelican, Frog didn't know. He did know, however, that there was a strangely calculating look on Pelican's face, as if the man was trying to decide something or the other about Alex. That shouldn't be a surprise, since they were all constantly trying to figure things out about Alex, but Frog still wondered what the look might mean.

He was torn from his internal musings as Mongoose stepped forward. "Alex," he said, his voice in what Jackal deemed his 'therapist' voice. It was softer and deeper and soothing, and it worked like a charm on Frog. Alex, on the other hand, stiffened imperceptibly. "Is there anything we should know?"

Frog watched Alex anxiously. Unsurprisingly, the teenager gave a mocking smile and said, "Not to my knowledge, no."

"Alex, you understand that we need to know what happened," continued Mongoose, and it was that sentence that made Frog cringe. He didn't know Alex all that well, but the unintentionally patronizing tone that Mongoose had adopted made even Frog stiffen, so obviously it wouldn't work on Alex either.

"I wasn't aware that you needed to know anything about me," Alex said lightly. "You're just here to teach me to survive."

"Who's trying to attack you?" Mongoose pressed, his dark eyes following Alex. Frog frowned in contemplation, wanting to know the answer to that as well. Oh, they knew sparse details - something about a terrorist organization, Alex was a spy for MI6 - but they didn't know why he was here or what he was hiding from. Not exactly.

Alex's tone was sarcastic, and even Frog could tell it was a defense mechanism. "It changes daily," he said dryly, in a voice very similar to Pelican's. "I'll have to look up the updated version."

Speaking of Pelican, Frog noticed his friend give a sudden, involuntary smile before he covered it up again. He was amused by this, though Frog wasn't sure why. He certainly wasn't laughing.

Mongoose exhaled in frustration. "You can _trust _us," he said.

Alex clenched his fists, but only shrugged and said, "We'll see."

Jackal, who had been following along silently, stepped forward. "Rider," he barked, most likely hoping his captain voice would spark some kind of obedience in Alex. Frog hated that voice; it made him feel chastised and young. "Tell us right now."

Alex was apparently made of stronger stuff than Frog because he just raised an eyebrow and said simply, "No."

"Tell us _now_, Rider, before we go straight to the Sergeant and make him tell us. Because if he gets a wind of the incident that happened here - when you nearly _killed_ Frog - " Alex flinched, "you can bet your ass that he'll tell us everything we want to know."

Frog felt bad for Alex as he stared at Jackal with such a tangible feeling of betrayal that Jackal's tough look almost faltered. Still, the SAS man was used to appearing mean, and so Jackal kept his arms crossed as he waited for Alex to respond.

"Fine," Alex said, and his voice was harsh. "Fine, dammit, what the hell do you want to know?" And his voice was getting louder, and he was squeezing his fists, and Frog knew that Alex was close to losing control again. He wanted to step in, stop the inevitable explosion from happening, but one stern look from Mongoose made him pause. Had he and Jackal planned this entire thing to get Alex to snap? Frog looked uncertainly at Pelican, who only gave him the smallest nod.

"Tell us who's after you," Jackal ordered. "Tell us why you lost it the other day, why you almost killed Frog, why your classmates are here, and why we're training you."

"Jackal - " Frog began hesitantly, as even though he had been told to be quiet, the completely blank look on Alex's face was scaring him. But Jackal gave Frog a venomous glare, and he shut up, privately hoping that they hadn't taken this too far.

* * *

><p>Alex cleared his face of all emotion, hoping desperately that they hadn't noticed how close he'd come to exploding. He couldn't lose control, not again, not like this. He couldn't tell them anything, he couldn't have them look at him with disgust, he couldn't bear for them to know just what he'd been through. It was none of their damn business, and if he could just still his racing heart and get his act back together, he'd be fine, perfectly fine, he just needed to calm down...<p>

"Tell us everything," Jackal barked again, and despite himself, Alex felt himself flinch at the commanding tone. He didn't have to do anything they told him, he could take care of himself, they had no control over him! He was fine, completely fine, if they would just leave him alone!

"Alex," said Mongoose, and his soothing voice made Alex's skin crawl. His eyes darted around wildly, and he felt trapped by these men, with their insidious efforts to get him to crack. If he couldn't even resist this, then how was he supposed to resist interrogation? He'd done it before, plenty of times, but he _liked_ these men, and they were looking at him with concern in their eyes, like they actually fucking cared -

- but how could they care because nobody really cared about him anymore, not him personally, only whether he lived or died. He was just a tool, and they were trying to crack him, and they were advancing on him, coming closer, and he just couldn't resist any more.

"Get away from me," Alex said, but his voice was shaky. His vision was blurring and his head was pounding. "Get the fuck away from me!"

"Alex," said a voice, and this time it was Frog, and Alex took a step backwards. He hadn't meant to hurt Frog, it had been an accident, but he wasn't good enough to control his feelings and he was so terribly sorry. "Alex, it's okay, you don't have to say anything if you don't want to - "

"Yes, you do," said Jackal, and Alex's eyes swung wildly from the two men. "You have to tell us what happened to you."

What happened to him? Alex blinked, and blinked again, and all he could see were flashes of images printed on his eyelids, of Ian and Jack and Ash, of Damian Cray and Julius Grief, of Nikolei Drevin and Paul, and Dr. Three and Yassen Gregorovich, of Ben and K-Unit, of Sabina and Tom. They cycled through head, life size video games, dissecting tables, clones, rockets, Scorpia and death. He couldn't breath, couldn't focus, all he could do was think about everything that had happening and how L-Unit had no fucking idea about him.

"If you tell us, we'll understand," said one of the men - Alex couldn't make out exactly who it was. His breaths were coming faster and he was struggling to keep any semblance of control, anything -

Mongoose sucked in a breath. Alex was coming apart right in front of him, and though it went against his moral code to let the kid hurt like that, he was a doctor first and foremost, and he knew Alex needed to let everything out.

He shared another look with Jackal, who once again repeated his command for Alex to tell him what had happened. Alex jerked, and an expression of great, terrible pain stole across the teenager's face - and he started talking.

It was barely coherent at first, mumbled sentences about somebody named Ian and camping trips. "I didn't know he was training me!" Alex said loudly, making all of them jump. "I thought we were having _fun_, but he was just training me to take over his place. Lies, all it, he didn't stop lying to me until he was killed - "

L-Unit gave each other startled looks. What was he talking about?

"And if I hadn't been so damn curious, I wouldn't even be here," Alex continued, recounting some insane story about climbing out of a window to break into Ian's office. Mongoose couldn't help it: he stared, open-mouthed, as the story got even more incredulous from there.

He remembered the Stormbreaker computers, and he knew the line had been discontinued, but he'd never really wondered why. He'd figured it was some tech thing, the computer wasn't working properly, whatever; did Alex really mean to tell them that the donator had been insane, trying to kill all of the school children, and Alex had single-handedly _stopped_ him?

It got worse. Before long, Mongoose's disbelief turned into sorrow, and all he could do was mourn for this boy, this broken, hardened boy, who had been through way too much entirely too soon.

* * *

><p>Alex didn't know why he was talking.<p>

He didn't know why he was telling them about the man of war, or Mr. Grin, or Point Blanc. He shouldn't have told them about almost being dissected, or the clones, or K-Unit coming in (they all inhaled sharply in surprise at that). It was violating the Official Secrets Act, and what if one of them was the spy...

Despite himself, he kept talking. It felt so good to finally unload, to look at the ground and tell somebody all about the terrible things that had happened. He had no idea what he was going to do once he stopped talking, but at the moment, he couldn't have stopped, even if he wanted to do so.

Minutes passed. Alex didn't know how long he'd been talking, but L-Unit had been completely silent, taking everything in. As he came to an end, he felt his cheeks start to burn - why had he told them everything? Why had he done that? He wouldn't be able to face them anymore, not now.

"Alex - " It was Mongoose, or maybe Frog, reaching out to him.

He ran.

* * *

><p>Pelican stared after the retreating figure of the boy.<p>

One second, he'd been shakily telling them about his shitty life, and the next minute he'd seemed to come to his senses, look around, realize what he was doing, and run.

To be honest, Pelican didn't blame him. Neither did the rest of L-Unit, apparently, as they all stood there with no intent to go after him.

"Oh my god," whispered Mongoose after a few long seconds, snapping them all out of their daze. "Oh my _god_."

"Was he telling the truth?" Frog asked, voice quiet and forlorn. He stared at the open door, apparently unable to comprehend what had just happened.

Pelican didn't blame him.

He'd been through plenty, but he'd chosen it, and he had been plenty old enough to handle it. There was a reason why Pelican was the oldest member. He'd joined the SAS the latest. He couldn't imagine going through half of the things that Alex had lived through when the boy had just been fourteen. "No wonder the kid is so fucked up."

"_Pelican_," hissed Mongoose, always protective.

Pelican shrugged unapologetically. "It's completely true and you know it," he said. Maybe it was cold, but there was no point beating around the bush. They had to acknowledge what was wrong with Rider before they figured out what to do next. "He's irreversibly screwed up."

"It's not his fault," said Frog defensively. Pelican raised an eyebrow. Apparently everybody was Alex's number one defendant now.

"We all know who to blame for this," Pelican said in response.

Jackal cleared his throat, but his voice was still gruff. "No wonder he didn't trust us."

"You ought to have known something like this would have happened," Pelican said, who had no sympathy for his fellow unit members at the moment. Alex showed many signs of having been through a crappy life; did they think his story would have been easy to handle?

Mongoose ran a hand through his hair. "We have to figure out what to do."

Pelican gave a little nod. They were all in shock; he was, too. They needed time to digest everything that had been said. He was relatively sure that by the night, all four of them would be much more agitated than they were now. It was hard to react when everything seemed so unreal.

"We need to let him know we're here," said Mongoose, who, out of all of them, was the most attached. However, it was a mark of how much all of them cared, to some extent, about the kid that nobody teased Mongoose for saying something so touchy-feely.

Instead, they all nodded - even Pelican. They would be there for him, as foreign as a concept as that was, because whenever they looked at Alex, they saw a kid - and a kid who most definitely needed help.

Whether or not the kid wanted to admit it.

* * *

><p>Alex ran.<p>

The steady rhythm of his feet pounding the ground calmed him, though he doubted he could ever recover from what had just happened.

He'd told.

He'd _told_.

Like a whiny kid who couldn't deal with things, he'd told, and he was sure it was going to turn out badly. They'd go to the Sergeant, they'd tell their friends, they were the spies...Alex knew with 100% certainty that this was going to turn out like shit.

He didn't need help. Alex never needed help. Ian had raised him to be independent, and he'd taken the lesson to heart years ago. He couldn't believe he'd just unloaded on them like they were his therapists. They were virtually strangers to him, and he'd dropped his guard. If a spy dropped in front of him right now to capture him, Alex knew he wouldn't have the strength to fight him off. His limbs felt shaky, and his mind was a mess. _He_ was a mess.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: This will be the last chapter of weak, angsty Alex, I promise. Next chapter, after an enlightening talk with the Sergeant, Alex returns to kicking butt. I have one word: paintball.**

**I hope this didn't seem too OOC. I just didn't buy that Alex would go through everything and come out relatively unscathed - mentally, that is. He was bound to have a breakdown at one time or the other. Now, it's up to L-Unit to see how they react. I hope you liked a little glimpse into the spy's mind...he's about to become a far more important character. **

**Hope you enjoyed this! I love my readers, I really do. Comments and critiques are, as always, much appreciated. **


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N: I am so sorry this took FOREVER. College started up again a couple days ago, and I've been a bit busy settling in. Thank you for all of your support and feedback and hopefully this chapter is to your liking! :)**

* * *

><p>The Sergeant, Paul, ran his tongue along this teeth thoughtfully. It had been about a week, give or take, since he'd given L-Unit the assignment to train Rider, and he hadn't yet checked up on the arrangement. That morning, he'd asked Jackal how it'd been going, and the man had shrugged and reassured Paul that everything was going fine. They were having a "minor setback," apparently, but nothing the men couldn't handle.<p>

Paul had great faith in the members of L-Unit, so he'd let that setback slide. He wasn't overly interested in nosing around the training. He _was_ interested, however, in talking to Rider about his situation, to see where the kid stood both in terms of training and the deal with the spy as well. He'd telephoned MI6 after the gas incident, and their instructions were to continue as before - something that was entirely unhelpful, and Paul didn't agree. He'd already gone behind their back in the training, so he figured that talking to Rider some more wouldn't hurt.

To his surprise, when he called Rider in to talk, the boy glared venomously at Paul. They weren't on particularly friendly terms, true, but Jackal had said the training was going well - why was Rider looking like he was about to stab somebody?

"Cub," Paul said, looking hard at the boy. He'd perfected his glare, honed it over many years of working, and it could make hardened soldiers tremble. He doubted Rider would be immune. The trick was to ask a perfectly innocuous question, to throw the other person off track so they gave away more information than they'd intended. "How's training going?"

For a reason unknown to him, Rider flinched instinctively. A second later, he controlled his facial expression, but Paul wasn't the Sergeant for nothing - he'd noticed. "What happened?" Rider said in response.

"Nothing happened," Paul said truthfully. Rider's defensive tone was probably due to this 'setback' of his, but Paul wasn't going to outright mention it unless it came up naturally in conversation. Tempers flared all the time in the SAS; he tried not to get involved. "I contacted MI6 after the gas."

"Let me guess," Rider said mockingly. The scowl on his face informed Paul that Rider wasn't very impressed with the MI6 at the moment. Paul didn't blame him. "They told you to carry on."

"Well, yes, actually," Paul said, a little nonplussed. He reminded himself that Rider likely had a lot of experience dealing with Blunt and Jones and continued. "I've decided to update you on the research that my soldiers have been doing on Scorpia."

Cub froze. "Why?" He said suspiciously.

"They're after you, aren't they?" Paul said. "I think that qualifies you as being part of this operation."

His expression considerably less hostile, Rider sat up straighter in his seat. "Are we talking about K-Unit?"

Paul nodded, and he slid a slender file across the table. "This is the details of their last report. They are currently in Siberia, investigating a series of assassinations."

"I doubt Scorpia is in Siberia," snorted Rider. "Can you picture them in fur coats and the like? The assassinations are probably to throw you off the trail."

Paul nodded thoughtfully. "We'd considered that possibility," he said, "but we decided that if they were trying to throw us off, we might be able to catch one of their agents and interrogate them."

Surprisingly, Alex gave a little laugh. Paul looked at him curiously and felt uncomfortable to see a dark look steal into the boy's eyes. "I hardly think K-Unit is capable of getting any information out of a Scorpia agent," Rider said, voice cold. "They do get trained for this possibility, you know. They'll resist for a few days and break down, pretending to spill secrets, and K-Unit would be off to Antarctica, the next thing you know."

Paul looked at Alex, but he didn't say what he wanted to say at the moment. (For how could he tell the kid that it sickened him to think about how Rider knew this in detail?) Instead, he nodded and asked seriously, "What would you suggest we do, then?"

* * *

><p>Alex could hardly believe it, to be honest. He couldn't believe that he was sitting here, in an office with the Sergeant, who was deliberately going against MI6's wishes to involve him in the Scorpia operation. The file in front of him had reports that Alex hadn't even known existed. It was more than likely that MI6 had many teams scattered over the world investigating Scorpia and this was hardly the whole story, but the Sergeant was sharing what he had - as if he <em>respected<em> Alex, and cared about his opinion.

With the entire fiasco of L-Unit, Alex was suddenly very pleased to be in this situation. The Sergeant wasn't babying him, or telling him to be ashamed of his knowledge. No, he was utilizing Alex, and while that might have made another person feel like a tool, the Sergeant was being completely upfront about everything.

His respect for the other man rose. Perhaps the Sergeant wasn't disgusted by Alex. The smallest smile crossed Alex's face before he leaned forward and began talking. It was a different kind of talk than the one he'd had with L-Unit, but it was no less rejuvenating. MI6 would rue the bloody day that they ignored his advice.

* * *

><p>Paul nodded in agreement as Rider talked. The kid had a good head on his shoulders, with sharp instincts for how these things worked. He was capable of predicting behaviors, and his advice was proving to be useful.<p>

More than that, Paul could tell that MI6 usually didn't ask Rider for his advice. If this wasn't a mistake, Paul didn't know what was. Unbeknownst to him, he echoed Rider's earlier thought that MI6 was going to regret not involving Rider more. He certainly didn't approve of sending the kid on operations, but he wasn't going to shy away from using every tool in his box. It wasn't like he was blackmailing Rider or anything. He could leave any time.

As Rider came to a halt, Paul recorded the last couple words and put his pen down. "So, how is training going?" Paul asked again, both because he was curious and also because he wanted to see what Rider would do.

Again, Rider's expression turned completely flat. "Fine." That worried Paul, as if this 'minor setback' was going to result in Rider not learning how to save his own hide, that was a problem.

So, going against his usual preferences to stay out of their business, Paul pressed the issue. "What happened?"

"What did they tell you?" Rider countered defiantly. That was the thing about him; Rider never appeared to defer to authority, or even believe they had control over him. Even Paul's soldiers snapped to attention when Paul walked by, but Rider was completely unafraid to forgo the usual courtesies. Paul didn't mind, for once; it showed some pluck in the kid, and that Paul could respect.

Accordingly, Paul told the truth. "They claimed it was a 'minor setback,'" he said, using air quotes. "Will it impede your training?"

"_I _won't let it impede anything," Rider said pointedly and a bit immaturely. Paul narrowed his eyes, and Rider exhaled loudly. Fixing his eyes on the desk, the picture of a reprimanded child, he mumbled, "I told them everything."

* * *

><p>When he said it, Alex wanted to take the words back. Apparently, he was now incapable of keeping anything to himself. The Sergeant would probably just tell him to suck it up and move on, or yell at him for releasing classified information. Why couldn't he just keep his mouth shut? That settled it. From now on, he wouldn't tell anybody <em>anything<em>. He'd keep absolutely silent -

"Good idea," the Sergeant said, completely halting Alex's train of thought. Alex rather unattractively gaped at the man, who continued, "You need somebody to talk to about this shit. Mongoose was training to be a psychologist in school before the army bug bit him, did you know that?"

"I broke the Official Secrets Act," Alex said, ignoring that bit about Mongoose. That fit with his image of the man. Did the Sergeant just tell him he needed to talk about his feelings?

The Sergeant waved his hand. "They won't gossip. I'll get them to sign the Act as well. You can tell them, if they do spread the news around, what happened to them after they screwed up _last_ time will seem like a walk in the park, understand?"

Despite himself, Alex felt a grin spread across his face. "Yes, sir."

The Sergeant nodded to himself and leaned forward. "Listen to me, Cub," he said, voice serious. "I'm not like MI6. I'm not going to order you to stay out of things, or even to get into things. But I am going to order you to do one thing. It's likely there's a spy here in the camp. If you have any information, any suspicions, about anything - Scorpia, or something else, I don't care - you come to me, is that understood?"

"Gladly," Alex said, who thought this was a very reasonable request. At least somebody was treating him like a capable adult. "What about MI6?"

Again, the Sergeant gave the dismissive hand gesture. "They forfeited their rights to you when they dumped you in my camp without any information or orders. And if you tell them that, I'm going to deny it."

"Yes, sir," Alex said, looking at the man in a new light. "I understand one hundred percent."

* * *

><p>Alex was feeling very refreshed after his talk with the Sergeant. It had restored his previously failing confidence, reminding him that there was a reason he had been picked to be an agent. There was a reason that his track record was flawless, to an extent. The Sergeant had told him, before he'd left, that one day he wouldn't be surprised if Alex would be the head of MI6, and "a damn good one at that." While thinking about turning into Blunt or Jones made him nauseous, Alex did have many complaints about the way MI6 operated...<p>

That was something to keep in mind, at least. It was responsible for the half smile that played across his face as he approached the gathering area for the evening activity. The Sergeant had told him to "give 'em hell tonight," so he was rather excited about whatever the activity was.

He grinned widely as he saw Tom standing and talking to Frog, speeding up to reach his friend before everybody else trickled in from supper. "Hey, Tom!"

"Alex!" Tom turned around and waved at his friend.

"I didn't know you were out," Alex said, as the part of his mind that had been worrying about Tom sighed in relief. "It's been awful without you, I'm telling you, Jeremy has been insufferable." He avoided Frog's eyes as he spoke casually to Tom, unsure whether the man was angry at him or not. Alex couldn't blame him if he was mad; Alex deserved it. He had no idea what L-Unit's reaction would be, and to be honest, it worried him.

Tom rolled his eyes expressively. "That man got so sick of me that he yelled for me to leave," he said, shrugging.

To both boys' surprise, Frog spoke up. "Oh, was that Bear?" The man said eagerly. "I heard he was on hospital duty."

Tom thought about it. "He never told me his name...taller than you, messy brown hair, mustache, blue eyes, really buff?"

"Likes to carve things?" Alex chimed in, testing the water.

Thankfully, Frog barely hesitated before he nodded. "Definitely Bear. He's an ass."

"He hates me," Tom said cheerfully.

"He hates everybody, don't take it personally," said Frog. He paused a second and continued, "And you kids can get awfully annoying." Alex raised an eyebrow as Frog most definitely sent a smirk his way. He wasn't mad, which made Alex smile to himself. Maybe they were playing it cool? Pretending not to have heard his story? He sincerely hoped so.

Unfortunately, he would have to wait to know, as the rest of L-Unit and the other kids joined them. Colin jogged up to Alex. "Man, you totally disappeared after you went to take your pills!"

Tom gave him a curious look - come to think of it, so did everybody else - and Alex shrugged uncomfortably. "I got distracted," he said evasively, holding up the water bottle that he'd brought with him. "I lost my water bottle, so I went to go look for it, and by the time I went to the showers, everybody was gone."

That had been calculated to make sure he didn't run into anybody, but did they have to know that? No.

"Yeah, but where'd you go after that?"

Alex shrugged one shoulder. He had climbed a tree and sat there, if he was being honest, just desperate to get away from everybody and his responsibilities. "Just around."

"He came to visit me," Tom piped up. Alex gave him a grateful look for his lie and nodded in agreement. "I was going mad trapped in there. There was this SAS man watching me, Bear, and he was so mean! I wasn't even doing anything, I was just singing to myself..."

Alex noticed Jackal's lips twitching before the older man cleared his throat sternly. "Alright, you lot, listen closely." The eight of them fell silent obediently. They'd seen enough of Jackal's rage in the past week or so to know it wasn't pretty. "Today we're going to be doing something a little more fun - paintball."

Everybody immediately perked up. Even Alex grinned to himself, before he realized that he should probably get hit a lot. Fun, fun, fun. Although he had been told to give them hell...

However, Jackal was looking right at him and smiling unpleasantly. "Each of you will get a different objective. This could be something like 'hit five members of the orange team' - you're green, by the way - or you could be a spy and turn on each other."

The teenagers looked at each other uneasily.

Mongoose gave a dirty look to Jackal. "You eight are a _unit_," he said, voice loud. "You trust each other. None of you will be a spy for another, understand?"

Alex snorted in his head. Being part of a unit did not mean everybody trusted each other; he was sure Jeremy was itching for the chance to get one on Alex.

"As this is an evening game, it will be considerably harder to see, and the paint will be slightly glow in the dark. The more you get hit, the more visible you become...so don't get hit."

"And some of us will also be participating," Pelican threw in, motioning to L-Unit. "So if you think you'll be safe because your classmates are useless, you're forgetting about us. We're good."

"One at a time, you'll be going with me to get your secret assignments," said Jackal, looking gleeful. "Okay...you're first." He pointed at Brooke.

Alex wondered what his assignment would be as the rest of them got theirs. Jeremy and Tom were both looking almost as happy as Jackal, which made Alex a bit nervous for two different reasons. He approached Jackal cautiously when everybody else had gone.

"Right," said Jackal softly, a smirk stretching over his boyish features. "You're going to get a special gun."

Alex raised an eyebrow.

"It's going to be bright pink," continued Jackal, ignoring how Alex rolled his eyes at the color. "And I expect to see a pink splotch on at least half of the students."

Despite himself, Alex grinned to himself. Without being discovered? He'd never played paintball before, but how hard could it be? He accepted the gun, which looked identical to the others' weapons. He weighed it in his hand as he followed the rest of the kids into the woods, where they were separated into sections to start. His eyes flitted around. Well, he could go up a tree, but wouldn't everybody (at least the smart ones) be picking a tree to sit in and pick off the others? He didn't want the SAS men to see him, lest they begin wondering why he had a different color, and why he was so good at shooting.

Alex bit his lip. He would just have to change his strategy every so often. When the whistle blew, his "unit" ran right while Alex ran left. He ducked immediately into a bush, mentally apologizing to Tom for abandoning him, and propped his gun up on a branch so only the top poked out, indistinguishable. Knowing the first couple seconds would be the craziest, before everybody figured out how to use their gun, he aimed at a group that were stupidly discussing their strategy in loud whispers and let off a round, splattering all of them with paint before they could react.

"Hey!" One of them called, lifting a hand from the splat on his clothes. "Who was that?"

"Must be one of the SAS guys," said another, hefting his gun up and looking around him cautiously. "Wait, look!" He pointed to the trees, where a girl had cleverly been hiding, and they opened fire on her. Alex took the opportunity to slip out the bush and creep away. Eight down.

Somebody shot at him, and Alex ducked instinctively, firing back in the direction of the attacker. He could tell by the cry that he'd hit a girl, and he took a few random turns to lose her. When he saw a group headed his way, he decided that it was as good a time as any to scale a tree, and made it as far up as his weight allowed. Up there, he was about to shoot down before he paused. They'd instantly see where the shots were coming from. Instead, he winced in advance, pointed the gun at himself, and shot himself in the side.

_Damn_, that hurt. He suppressed a groan of pain and used his fingers to spread the paint so it appeared he had been hit multiple times. Then, he leaned partially out of the tree and got a few people.

They whipped around, guns at the ready, and Alex allowed himself to fall out of the tree, staggering to his feet. "Did you see the guy?" He asked, pointing to the pink paint. "I think he was in a tree, he hit me real hard, it's gonna leave a bruise..."

"No, I didn't see him," said one boy, clearly the leader of that little group. He raised his gun to shoot Alex, but Alex held up a weak hand.

"Wait, please don't shoot, I can hardly breathe," he said, coughing. "That really hurt, and you're super close."

"Let him go," said another member of the group. "We'll get him later."

The boy gave Alex an appraising look, but he shrugged and the group moved on. Alex debated shooting after them, but really, unless they were complete idiots, they would have to know it was him. Instead, he took off in the opposite direction.

There was a large, straggly bush underneath a tree, so Alex glanced around and crawled inside before anybody passed by and saw him. He crouched, gun at the ready, for somebody to walk by him. The bush strategy wasn't the smartest one, he reflected, feeling the scrapes and scratches he'd already gotten on his cheeks and arms, but it seemed to work thus far.

And a second later, when he heard rustling, Alex could just make out a large man scaling the tree above him. He grinned to himself - definitely an SAS man, unless there was a mammoth teenager he didn't know. Debating whether or not to shoot the man (maybe Jackal would count it as extra credit?), he paused when he heard the man's gruff voice.

"There's a group of the little buggers heading your way, Dog," the man said, presumably into a walkie-talkie or radio. "Want to tag team them?"

Alex strained to hear the response, but he couldn't make it out from his position.

The man laughed and said, "Heading your way."

A few seconds later, Alex heard a light thud as the man jumped out of the tree. As he waited, he unscrewed the water bottle, took a few deep gulps, and poured a little on his hair so that it looked matted with sweat. He spilled some water under his arms, chest, and even poured a little down his back, hoping it would help him look enfeebled and exhausted. Done, he slipped out in pursuit.

He kept a little bit away from the SAS man, who was moving nimbly a few meters away. Alex limped along, gasping for breath, the pink paint on himself running and smearing his grey t-shirt. He passed a group of kids, but when he wheezed out, "Don't..shoot...'m hurt," they let him go. Even teenagers weren't mean enough to shoot a boy who looked like he was about to collapse from close range. Of course, once a few feet away, Alex used a tree for cover and shot the group.

His lips curled as he heard the shouts, and he quickly darted after the SAS man that he'd been tailing. He had disappeared, so Alex quickly swung himself up a tree so that he could spot the man. Looking around, Alex saw him and another SAS man - presumably Dog - each behind a tree, peeking out every so often. The group that the first man had told the second about must have been the kids that Alex shot, so they were almost here.

As expected, in a few seconds, the pink-splattered kids moved into the little clearing where Alex and the other two men were hiding. Stopping for a rest, the teenagers started complaining to each other, clearly not finding the game fun anymore. They had little splatters of pink, red, green, orange and yellow on them, and as their voices began to climb higher even as they stayed in the same place, Alex could see why. They were making themselves clear targets. Alex rolled his eyes and aimed his gun at where the SAS men were. He might be able to get both if he was fast...

One leaned out and shot a kid with a spray of brown, while the other hit another kid with light green. Alex managed to shoot the brown guy, who swore and ducked back into cover, but he missed the green man. However, his position in the tree aided him, as he swung out to a branch to the left and managed to clip the green man on the soldier.

Alex immediately stuck the small paintball gun into the back of his jeans and climbed up higher, as much as the slender branches allowed. The two SAS men were taking turns alternately looking for him and shooting the idiot teenagers, who were _still_ in the clearing. Oh, a few of them had tried to hide behind trees, but anybody could have picked them off. Alex would have, but he was laying low, and he'd gotten them already.

He used the time to take a few calming breaths and mentally calculate how many he'd hit. The first eight, plus maybe four or five, and then the two men, and the eight in the clearing...he was up to over twenty, but there were many more teenagers in the group. He'd have to work harder.

The next twenty or so minutes, Alex was having the time of his life. He had upped his game, and first found a nice tall tree, where he'd picked off at least fifteen people who'd stumbled his way. Moving after that, he'd walked around, pretending to be hurt so that people didn't shoot him, and when they passed, he'd hidden behind trees and shot them. Although he knew in one logical part of his brain that he was so good at this because he'd practiced with real guns, and that soldiers used this kind of exercise to practice _killing people_, he was also having a blast pretending to be in a spy movie. There was a large difference between being a legitimate spy, which involved a lot of pain and dirty work, and being in a spy film, which mostly involved looking cool and being awesome. Alex could separate the two in his head, but it didn't stop him from having fun.

He was a teenager, after all, and though he often forgot that little fact, he was capable of acting his age.

* * *

><p>The spy watched Rider amusedly.<p>

The SAS men were bumbling around trying to figure out who the pink person was, but they naturally disregarded all of the students. Instead, they were quick to turn on each other, shouting and arguing that they were only supposed to tag the students. Rider had managed to get a fair amount of the SAS men, and again the spy's respect rose a notch.

Instead of sitting in a tree to pick everybody off - which the spy was relatively certain Rider could manage - the boy was using a set of tricks and manipulations to hit everybody, almost like a personal challenge. He lied and tricked people, betrayed them and shot them in the back. He was merciless, and moreover, he was clearly having fun.

The spy didn't blame him. He almost wanted to join in the game himself. He would have to suggest this to his supervisors when he got back; paintball was clearly both entertaining and useful. Too bad Rider was obviously the best one there.

One of the members of that unit - L-Unit, he believed - was sitting in a tree a few feet away from Rider, about to aim. The spy watched interestedly, wondering what Rider was going to do.

The SAS man fluidly moved from one tree to another. Despite himself, the spy was impressed. Rider didn't appear to have noticed from his position crouched at the base of the tree. The SAS man, now directly on top of Rider, aimed his gun...

...and dropped it with a groan of pain as Rider pointed his gun straight upwards and hit the man right in the gut. The spy couldn't conceal a snigger as Rider picked up the other man's gun and saluted him. "Nice shooting, Frog."

The SAS man, Frog, gave a mumbled curse and slid down the tree. "Give me my gun back."

"Shouldn't have dropped it," Rider said cheerily, shoving the gun in his belt and sprinting away. Frog lay chase, but he stopped a second later to catch his breath, having been hit, again, with the pink.

"Nice job, Rider," the spy muttered to himself as Frog slinked away. When the man was out of sight, the spy dropped to the floor and ran lithely between the trees, tracking Rider. This was the most entertaining thing that had happened to him all week.

* * *

><p>Frog scowled as the flushed, sweaty and paint covered teenagers reassembled in the clearing as night began to fall. They were chattering loudly, some excitedly and some angrily. A few were crying, having been hit hard in painful places. They compared bruises, counted the splotches on each other, but generally had a good time.<p>

The SAS, on the other hand, were not very pleased with each other. It had deteriorated into an all out war between the units. Frog had a sneaking suspicion that Jackal had planned it. Everybody had wanted to know who the pink traitor had been, as they'd all been given instructions to ignore each other and shoot the kids if things got boring. Apparently Alex had been quite busy, as most of the kids and quite a few soldiers were splattered in pink. The kid still had his gun, which had resulted in Frog being ambushed very painfully by B-Unit, the assholes. They were currently glaring at him as well, since he'd fought back physically to escape, managing to land a few painful hits on the men. Apparently the night sessions with Alex were helping his reflexes as well.

Even Jackal, Mongoose and Pelican were scowling, since Alex had managed to tag all of them. He'd apparently played to Mongoose's sympathies, limping into the clearing and pretending to be horribly hurt. Mongoose had somehow managed to ignore the fact that Alex had no other paint on him and been duped into lowering his gun, at which time Alex had fired off a round. While Mongoose was usually very cheerful, he was currently glaring at the ground.

Jackal refused to say how he'd been tagged, but Frog suspected that he'd grown overconfident, much like Frog had earlier. Pelican had been hit squarely in the back while he'd been busy in a fight with a few other SAS men, who had also been splattered without any of them managing to spot Alex.

"I think it was a mistake to give him the gun," Frog said as he finally spotted Alex talking to that friend of his, Tom. It didn't help his mood to see that Alex only had a few splotches of pink littering his clothes. He hadn't been hit at all, dammit.

Jackal sneered. "You're just mad because he stole your gun. How did that happen? You 'dropped' it?"

"I did!" Frog protested truthfully. "And you didn't even tell us how he landed one on you."

Jackal's hand went to his pink covered shoulder. "Well, I thought it'd be a good challenge for him."

"I wonder how good he is at shooting," mused Pelican, who was also watching Alex. "Think we should do some gun training?"

Frog gave him a dirty look. "Obviously, he's good at shooting." If Alex did know how to shoot, it was probably part of his 'training,' one of the things Alex had skimmed over. He'd told them an overview, a summary, without going into too many details that would doubtlessly be too painful for him to discuss. Frog didn't want to know the details, though Mongoose was itching to ask him questions about his injuries and the like.

Pelican rolled his eyes at Frog. "No, _obviously_ Alex is good at hiding, manipulating, and planning. That doesn't necessarily mean he can shoot things. His aim's decent."

"Gun training might be a good idea," said Jackal, before he shuddered. "If we do train him, we're staying far, far away from paintball, agreed?"

They agreed unanimously. That was one demoralizing experience none of them wanted to repeat.

* * *

><p>"You only got hit <em>once<em>?" Tom said, looking at Alex enviously. He was covered head to toe in different colors.

Alex shrugged. "I got out of the game," he said, evasively. "I mean, I got separated from you lot, so I started looking for you, but the guy with the pink got me really hard, and I was completely out of breath, so I sat down for a while."

"Oh my god," said Colin in agreement. "That pink guy was awful. He shot me straight in the gut. I don't blame you for sitting down."

Alex mentally winced. He hadn't meant to hurt people, but he supposed he got a little carried away. "Yeah, and then I ran into a big group of SAS men, and I didn't want them to all shoot me, so I lied and said I was hurt. They told me to go to the medic office. I couldn't exactly say 'nevermind.'"

"What did you end up doing?"

Alex shrugged. "They confiscated my gun," he lied, as he'd deposited both his gun and Frog's in the communal pile a few minutes ago. "So I just sat up a tree and watched."

"That sucks," Tom said sympathetically, "But at least you didn't get hit. Damn, Jeremy totally turned traitor on me!"

"What was his assignment?"

"You know, I'm not really sure," said Tom pensively. "I got him in the balls, and he started cursing at me and shot me in the bloody neck, see?"

Colin and Alex both winced. There was going to be a nasty bruise growing there tomorrow. "At least you got him good," Colin said. "I hate that bloke."

"Yeah," Tom agreed.

Alex was about to say something, but a gruff voice interrupted their conversation. "Alex," said a cold voice. Alex wrinkled his nose. It was Mongoose. Alex felt bad about betraying him...wait, actually, no he didn't. All was fair in paintball. "Can I talk to you for a minute?"

"Sure," Alex said, faux-cheerfully. He turned away from his friends and followed Mongoose to L-Unit, who all glared as one. It was a bit intimidating, but he put on a cheery smile. "Have fun?"

"No, but apparently you did," growled Jackal. He glared for a few seconds, and then his expression relaxed. "Nice job, kid."

"Thanks," Alex said cautiously.

Pelican narrowed his eyes at Alex. "In the back? That was a low blow, Alex."

He grinned. "Sorry," he said, unapologetically. "I saw an opportunity, and I struck."

"You managed to tag yourself?" Frog chimed in. "Nice."

Alright. So maybe they weren't going to act awkward around him. Alex shrugged. "A diversionary tactic."

"Smart."

There was a prolonged silence.

"Do you need something?" Alex asked.

"Tonight, midnight," Jackal said shortly. "Shooting range."

They walked away.

Shooting?

Alex felt physically sick every time he shot a gun at a person, paintball excepted. But pure shooting or marksmanship, where the objective was simply to hit a target - that was soothing to him, in a strange way. He just wished the skill didn't translate over to real life in such a gruesome way.

* * *

><p>Far, far away, K-Unit shivered.<p>

It was something they were growing entirely too accustomed to, and even Fox's optimism was wearing thin. He knew the others were only going along with this because he asked them to join him, and he - along with the rest of them - wished desperately for results.

They were drinking hot chocolate, which blessedly warmed them for a few seconds. "I got a text from the Sergeant today," Fox said, taking a large pull of the sweet drink.

The others looked at him. Eagle had wrapped himself up in his large coat and his insulated sleeping bag, and Snake was close to doing the same. Wolf, always carelessly defiant, was sporting a simple turtleneck and jeans, pretending not to be freezing like the rest of them.

"He said that he told Cub about us," Fox continued. "Cub says we should leave Siberia."

"No shit, Sherlock," Eagle muttered sarcastically, rubbing his arms. "I'm down with listening to the little kid."

"He's not that little anymore," Fox argued, "And he has experience with Scorpia."

Wolf snorted. "I'm sure he does," he muttered. "It doesn't surprise me that everybody who meets the kid ends up hating him."

Fox leveled a glare at the unit leader, who only raised an eyebrow. They weren't doing it for Cub, like Fox was. They were doing it because they were asked to, and because Scorpia was a threat. "_Anyway_, Cub apparently claims that we're better off leaving the assassins, since it's probably a false trail."

"And the Sarge listens to him?" Eagle asked, narrowing his eyes. "So when we tell him that Siberia's a frozen hellhole and it's a trap, he tells us to suck it up, but when _Cub_ tells him, he's all for the plan?"

Fox wasn't entirely sure why the Sergeant was following orders from Cub, but he shrugged. "It's not important," he said. "We're supposed to evacuate as soon as possible and move on to the next target."

"What about the assassinations?" Snake asked gruffly.

Fox shrugged before he began to smirk. "Apparently, the Sarge is going to try to get MI6 to send some of their men here. Get us stationed in Italy or France or something."

They all grinned, but they couldn't muster up the energy to laugh. It had been a long and tiring couple of days, traipsing all over Siberia in order to find some random assassins.

"Cub never called us, did he?" Wolf said, looking pleased for some reason. "Looks like the kid's not that good, huh, Fox?"

Fox rolled his eyes. He thought it was ridiculous to dare the kid to get their number from the Sergeant, but the other three thought it would be funny. He knew that Alex was good, but the last time the others had seen him, he'd been young. "Maybe he's smart enough to realize it wouldn't accomplish anything," Fox said dryly. He stood and checked his watch. "It's approaching dawn, we should start making our way back."

The others stood and began backing their things as well. "I'm starting to believe this 'Scorpia' doesn't even exist," grumbled Eagle as he reluctantly got out of the sleeping bag. "We haven't heard head nor tails of it. We're not spies, either; they really should have sent someone else."

"If you want to go back to camp, go ahead," Fox snapped, rolling up his sleeping bag. "I'll find somebody else to go on this mission with me. It's my job."

"Real shitty job," Eagle said, but he quieted after that.

Snake sent him a small smile. "You could always come back to the SAS."

"No, he's a big bad agent now," Wolf said harshly, and he turned away. "Why would he come back?"

Fox stared at Wolf's back, and he let out a sigh. He knew that his unit was hurt by his decision to join the MI6, but he couldn't really explain why he'd been drawn to it over the SAS. How could any of them explain? K-Unit would just have to deal with it, since once their mission was over, he'd be right back going on missions for Blunt and Jones.


	9. Chapter 9

The spy was very pleased with how things were progressing.

His superiors back at Scorpia were getting impatient, but the spy had far better instincts than them, and he was sure that if he told them of Rider's secret training, they would act rashly. Now was not the time to blunder in and make stupid mistakes, as Scorpia was unfortunately prone to doing. No, now was the time to watch from afar, to adjust his strategy accordingly, and to strike at only the most opportune moment - never before, never after.

Watching Rider exit the showers, the spy smiled in anticipation for the night's entertainment. He wasn't sure whether L-Unit was unobservant or stupid; clearly, the boy was a natural at shooting. The way he'd handled his paintball gun spoke of innate talent far beyond any skills Rider might have picked up in Scorpia training. The spy was excited, to say the least, about watching his 'lessons.'

Regarding Rider, the spy had a plan, one he could hardly wait to put into action, for he was growing tired of Scorpia. They stayed ineffectual and were fast growing obsolete in a modern world. They needed somebody new, somebody intelligent and smart and capable, somebody who could analyze past mistakes and make sure mistakes were never repeated and hardly ever made. They also needed somebody to whom spying came naturally. Somebody who had the talent in their blood, who had been born into the complicated world of espionage and could navigate with ease.

The spy had a certain somebody in mind for that role, and together, they would be unstoppable.

* * *

><p>Alex hissed gingerly as he got out of the shower, quickly wrapping a towel around himself. He'd filched another towel from the laundry area, and used the second one to cover his back and chest as much as was possible. He knew he looked ridiculous, so he tried to dry off quickly but found himself wincing in pain.<p>

His muscles were extremely sore from the exertion of yesterday, as well as many nights of physical fighting catching up to him. He was improving by spades, yes, but he was also littered with a myriad of new black and blue bruises. His back had also been paining him lately, not to mention the ever present ache in his chest. Alex wiped a hand roughly across his face and gritted his teeth, dragging the rough towel over his tender skin.

Checking to make sure nobody was there, he pulled a shirt over his still damp body, following it up with boxers and jeans. The clothes pulled uncomfortably against his injuries, and Alex mentally thanked L-Unit that they weren't doing anything too physical that night. Shooting he could handle, as long as it didn't involve too much "duck and cover" work.

Alex hadn't wanted to take a shower before shooting, but he'd been so hot and sweaty after paintball that it was necessary. He'd managed to use the pill excuse to get out of showering with his peers, but he knew it was likely the last time Colin and the like would buy that.

Blast it all, he felt so damn tired. Mentally, he was feeling better than ever, as if a giant load had been lifted off his chest. Telling L-Unit coupled with both paintball and the Sergeant's little talk had left Alex feeling rejuvenated. Physically, however, his body was protesting the vigorous exercise at all hours of the night. Alex was finding it difficult to stay awake. He'd taken to having short power naps during free time despite the teasing, simply because he was so tired all the time. It was making his useless act a lot more authentic, but Alex wasn't sure how much longer he'd be able to keep this double life up.

He sighed to himself, stretched, and prepared to go to the shooting range. It was approaching eleven thirty, which was why nobody was in the showers. He quite honestly just wanted to lie down and sleep, but that wouldn't go over well. They'd probably think he was avoiding them - something Alex wanted to do but knew he couldn't.

Instead of going to bed, he began walking in the cold towards the meeting point. Alex knew he was good at shooting; the skill came as naturally to him as running, and his extra Scorpia training had only added to the talent. His problem, however, was knowing that the bullet from his gun could potentially _kill _somebody; that knowledge made him freeze up, and a result, he didn't particularly enjoy it.

There were four shadowy figures at the shooting range, and Alex approached them cautiously. It was L-Unit, but they were wearing their standard uniforms instead of the casual clothes they usually wore during the night. Alex furrowed his brow as he looked at their outfits, but he didn't ask. They probably had a reason, and he was uncomfortable enough near them as it was without asking stupid questions.

Jackal made a production of looking at his watch. "Late, Cub."

Alex immediately stiffened at the name. "Excuse me?"

"Excuse _me_," Jackal parroted, but there was an easy smirk on his face that made Alex curious as to its reason. "Are you questioning orders?"

"Orders?"

"Is there an echo, or can you not hear properly, Cub?" Pelican joined in. He had the same amused look on his face that had been on Jackal's, and frankly, it made Alex nervous.

"What's going on?" Alex asked suspiciously.

Even Mongoose didn't spare him. Though traditionally nicer than the others, the medic only gave him a cool look. "You're a recruit, Cub, better start acting like one."

A recruit?

Alex was sure he looked like an idiot, his mouth hanging partly open as he tried to figure out what that meant. He wasn't really a recruit, was he? Had that conversation with the Sergeant been to _recruit _him? He didn't want to join the SAS.

"Don't look so bloody terrified," Frog snorted, and there was something in his wink that helped Alex to relax fractionally. "Nothing's going to happen to you - unless you keep thinking like a stupid teenager, that is."

Okay. He could think rationally, really, he could. There was a reason they were calling him Cub. Maybe it was a cover? A way to explain all the extra lessons? He was just a recruit they'd taken a special interest in, not a trained teenage spy. Just a recruit. He could roll with that.

"I'm not _just_ a stupid recruit, you'll see soon enough!" Alex protested and felt gratified by the looks of approval from L-Unit.

"You better prove it to us, kid, 'cause right now you're looking like a dunce," Jackal said harshly, but since Alex knew it was (mostly) an act, it didn't sting. "Come on, we don't have all night to teach you how to handle a gun."

"Speaking of guns," Alex started, intending to tell them that he could shoot guns perfectly fine, thank you very much, but they cut him off.

"Shut up, Cub, don't be a pansy," Pelican said, throwing him a set of the same uniform L-Unit was wearing. "We're going to go set things up. Change, nobody's watching you."

They started to walk away, and Alex called after them as loud as he dared. "There's something you should know..." but they either ignored him or didn't hear him. Groaning to himself, Alex stripped quickly and changed. Why didn't they ever _listen? _He redid the precautions he always set up - the money in his sock, the small knife he slipped down his boot, the matches, and so on - and tried to figure out how to play this situation.

He didn't like shooting. Plain and simple. He avoided guns if he could help it, preferred to use knives or his fists and feet. There was something about the cold metallic glint of a gun in his hand, the impersonal feel of it all, that made him tense up. He was sure that if a psychologist ever analyzed him, they'd decide he had at least ten inner traumas that were crippling him from shooting, but since he didn't particularly like psychologists, he didn't think that would be a problem. Hell, if he thought through his problems, he'd realize just how screwed up he was...but Alex avoided self reflection as much as possible for that very reason.

Alex shook himself out of his thoughts as L-Unit returned. They were wheeling a small cart with a rack of five or six small handguns and cardboard cutouts lying horizontally on the bottom. "Come on, let's get a move on," Jackal snapped authoritatively. "Cub, the cart."

He obediently began pushing the cart. "I don't really think all of this is necessary," he began, only to be cut off. Again.

"Okay, this is a gun," Frog said unnecessarily, holding up a handgun. He continued in a patronizing tone (though intentional or not, Alex wasn't sure). "You use it to shoot people."

"Shut up," Alex said, rolling his eyes. "I know how to shoot a damn gun."

"Yeah, okay, Mr. Paintball," said Pelican sarcastically. "This is important, pay attention."

Alex ground his teeth together as Mongoose returned from setting up the targets. He was so sick and tired of being treated like a child. He'd expected better from L-Unit. He tuned Jackal out as he began a long-winded explanation on guns and tried to center his thoughts.

"Okay," Jackal concluded, after what seemed like hours. "Do you want to try holding one?"

"Oh, thank you for that honor," Alex said sarcastically, holding out his hand. If they were going to make this difficult for him, he'd make it just as difficult for them.

Pelican, who had been about to hand Alex a small handgun, paused. "Don't get lippy," he chided, looking amused.

Alex rolled his eyes and snatched the gun out of Pelican's hands. "Whatever."

"Aw, did somebody not get enough sleep last night?" Pelican responded, "Shut up."

Alex gave him a derisive look and turned away. He checked the gun, making sure it was loaded and ready. He weighed it a few times in his hands to get a feel for it. He hadn't used that particular kind before, but he was pretty sure he could shoot with it.

"Careful," Mongoose cautioned. "You don't want to accidentally shoot yourself."

"I know how to shoot," Alex repeated, his voice tense with irritation.

Jackal nodded, and then promptly ignored him. "Obviously, Cub, it's going to be difficult the first time; watch out for the recoil, and try to keep your body steady."

Alex had given up trying to get them to listen to him. Actions speak louder than words, after all. He simply nodded, trying to speed along this process. He looked at the targets, memorizing their positions. They were impersonal white cutouts, yet he still suppressed a shudder. _They aren't real_, he told himself firmly. _They aren't people_.

He inhaled and exhaled slowly. He wasn't going to let this faze him. Jackal said something, but Alex ignored him. He was calm. Controlled. Centered.

"Okay, let's give it a try," said Pelican, and Alex snapped out of his daze. He followed the men into the actual range, where Jackal showed him the proper stance. Alex copied it automatically. It came easily to him, his body remembering his prior training.

"Good," Mongoose complimented, sounding surprised. "Okay, hold it like this - oh, well, that's a good grip. Guess you've watched a lot of films, huh?"

Alex smiled without humor. "Something like that."

"Why don't you try to hit one of the targets? You aren't going to, but you should try anyway," Jackal said. "There are six of them. It might be easier to go for the one closest to you. Remember what I said about the recoil."

Alex breathed deeply again and raised the gun. Curling his finger across the trigger, he fired six shots, lightly pivoting one way and another in order to get them all. He put down the gun and turned around - only to find all four members staring at him like they'd seen a ghost.

"You can shoot," Frog said unnecessarily. "How the hell do you know how to shoot?"

Mongoose jogged away to inspect the targets as Alex uneasily replied, "Somebody taught me."

"Holy shit, Cub," Jackal said, with a hint of admiration.

Pelican's contribution was sour. "Beginner's luck," he said, though he was staring at Alex with a calculating look. "Can you hit moving targets?"

Alex shook his head as Mongoose returned. "I've only practiced with stationary ones."

"He hit all six!" Mongoose said breathlessly. "All damn six, and fatally too."

Alex smiled sheepishly. "Told you I could shoot. Maybe you should have listened."

"Maybe you should have said something before I spent half an hour explaining the basics," Jackal said, eyes narrowed. He continued before Alex could protest that he'd said something multiple times. "We're going to try a new exercise, Cub. I still have to pay you back for paintball."

This didn't seem like it was going to be fun.

* * *

><p>Far away, in the bland office of MI6's head, Mr. Blunt and Mrs. Jones sat looking over the latest report from one of their teams scouting out Scorpia.<p>

"They haven't made a move, yet," Blunt said thoughtfully, a small crease appearing in his forehead. "Curious."

Jones flipped a page and shook her head. "Alex has been at Brecon Beacons, virtually unprotected, for weeks now. They should have taken the opportunity."

Blunt nodded thoughtfully. "Perhaps they are waiting," he said. "They wouldn't expect us to play this strategy."

"To use him as bait, you mean?" Mrs. Jones said harshly, but a raised eyebrow from her superior made her quiet down. Blunt knew that his employee was not fond of this particular plan, but he'd weighed the outcomes and alternatives, and it made perfect sense.

"The moment they make a move, we'll strike," he said, his voice as close to reassuring as it would ever be. "Alex will simply have to survive for at least twenty four hours."

"And if he doesn't?"

Blunt chided, "I have great faith in Alex's abilities."

Jones nodded, appropriately chastised, and brought out another slim file - the Sergeant's weekly report. She flipped through it, keen eyes searching for anything out of the ordinary.

"Any news?" Blunt asked carelessly, though he'd doubtlessly already read and analyzed it.

Jones shook her head. "No sign of the spy, if there indeed is one."

Blunt's eyes narrowed slightly. "You think there isn't one?"

"They could be using this as a distraction to prepare an attack elsewhere."

"Indeed," Blunt said, though he didn't appear to believe her. "We shall simply have to make Alex a more appealing target."

Jones nodded, and a small smile crept across her face. "I have an idea."

* * *

><p>Alex once again was handling a small handgun, but this time it was neither filled with bullets or paint. No, this was loaded with tiny yellow balls, and it hurt like hell when he got hit.<p>

His job was to complete the obstacle course without being hit, as the four members of L-Unit also carried similar BB guns. He'd caught sight of Mongoose a few minutes earlier and knew the man carried a sniper, but he had no idea what type of gun the other three were carrying.

Muscles tensed, Alex felt hopelessly exposed as he came to the first obstacle, the large wall. The obstacle course was often changed up for variety, but a few components stayed the same. Last time, they'd made it over the wall by helping each other over, but this time, he was alone.

A bullet whizzed by his ear, and he automatically started moving, firing back in the direction of the shot. He ran in zig-zags, darting one way and then erratically going the other, to make it harder for somebody to place a shot on him. There was no cover, unless he got over the damn wall, and he wasn't sure how he'd do that.

On either side of the wall, there was nasty barbed wire running along the ground, meaning he had to go over instead of simply going around. The wall was made out of large logs lashed together, and as he ran a hand along the crease in between two, he noticed that they were oiled or greased to make it more difficult to climb. There was no way to get over without relinquishing his hold on the weapon, which meant he'd get hit...

Alex instinctively ducked as he saw a rustle from one of the trees a few meters away. This proved to be smart, as a yellow bullet flew over his head. He had to get out of there; at least two men were shooting at him.

_Damn the wall_, Alex thought to himself. He shot a volley back towards the rustle and, hearing a stifled curse, knew at least one bullet had hit. In the meantime, he ran towards the nearest tree. About half a meter away from the wall, it was a perfect item in his rapidly developing plan. Shoving the gun in his belt, Alex quickly swung himself up the tree. A bullet hit him in the shoulder, reminding him that whoever was shooting at him could still see him, and he cursed viciously. Taking his gun in one hand, Alex crawled along the branches until he was a short jump from the wall. Feeling very much reminded of the time he'd jumped out of a window to get into Ian's office, Alex leaped from his uneasy position in the tree and managed to land unstably on the wall, holding to the top as his feet scrabbled for hold underneath him.

Looking down, he figured the fall wouldn't hurt him, and the decision was made for him a second later as a bullet hit his hand. "Dammit!" Alex let go and dropped the ten feet, landing with a roll like he'd been taught in Scorpia in order to minimize damage. Once on the ground, though he was feeling a bit shaken, he got up and began running to the next obstacle.

He could shoot alright, but apparently avoiding bullets was another story altogether.

The next obstacle involved ropes. There was some pool of nasty looking mud or slime on the ground, with a thin tightrope wire stretched tautly across. Hanging from an apparatus above were larger ropes, and it was clear that he was supposed to use them to balance himself as he wobbled his way across the wire.

Were they insane? He had to do this, dodge bullets, and hit the men? A BB stung his hand, and he cursed and jumped back. They were getting impatient. "I hate you," he called out, and there were a few chuckles in reply. Dammit, they had him surrounded.

Alex hopped on the wire, clutching at the first rope to keep him steady. The wire cut into his boots, and it was impossible to get a good hold. He turned sideways to make it easier and slowly inched along. A bullet hit him in the leg, and he cursed and swung back, almost falling over before he managed to pull himself back upright. Okay. This wasn't going to work. He was literally a sitting duck.

Stretching his arms as much as he could from his position, he reached down and grabbed his gun. Holding tight to one rope, he leaned around and shot blindly into the trees, hoping to hit at least one of them. Praying he'd made contact, he shoved the gun back in his belt and began climbing the rope. His muscles protested the strain, and his feet grappled for purchase beneath him. He hadn't climbed straight up a rope in months, and he'd forgotten how difficult it was. His hands chafed and his shoulders hurt, and L-Unit was still shooting him. One hit him in the chest, and Alex couldn't hold back the cry that it prompted. Dammit! He had to make up some excuse as to why they couldn't shoot his chest. It hurt far too much, but he couldn't exactly say he had been shot by a real gun.

The ropes were connected to a metal pole above that was held up by two other poles on either side making a V. Reaching the pole above, he clung to it, and with great effort, swung his legs up so that he was hanging upside down. The ropes helped shield him from the bullets, and he was pretty sure L-Unit wouldn't risk having him fall from this distance. He could seriously hurt himself.

He began crawling upside down, shifting his weight from one side to another to move himself along. At the other side, he grabbed one of the poles holding the apparatus up and jumped, twisting his body in midair so that he was right side up. From there, it was easy to slide down the pole and land on the ground.

Immediately, he was hit with bullets from all four sides, as if L-Unit wanted to remind him that they were watching and his momentary reprieve had been just that: momentary. Groaning, Alex began running erratically again. He shouldn't have showed off earlier, dammit. Why did he never think of these things until after he was dealing with the consequences?

* * *

><p>It was a dispirited Alex who staggered out of the obstacle course to see the four members of L-Unit grinning at him. Of course <em>they<em> were happy. He'd managed to get all of them once or twice, but that was nothing compared to the literal barrage of bullets that had struck Alex in the hour he'd spent getting over the course.

"Assholes," Alex bit out, though he was more upset with himself than with them. He'd been a little cocky and overconfident, and he was hurting because of it.

"You'd be dead," Jackal pointed out, a little too cheerfully for Alex's tastes. "Congratulations."

"How about you run the course and see if you survive?" Alex snapped back.

Jackal shook his head. "No, thanks."

"You did do a good job in figuring out ways to minimize damage," Mongoose said. "Like when you knew we wouldn't hit you when you were climbing upside down, or when you swum through the creek instead of hopping acros it."

"You're still dead," Jackal said, a little too cheerfully.

"We're going to have a shooting contest," Alex said, rubbing a patch on his arm where a nasty bruise was forming. "I can take you on blindfolded."

"Don't get ahead of yourself, kid," Jackal said dismissively. "That'd be unfair."

"Tomorrow," Alex said, withdrawing his gun. "It's on."

He cocked the gun and turned to go. Just as he was pretty sure they'd let their guard down, he spun around and shot all of them one by one.

Point blank.

He ran for his life.

* * *

><p>The Sergeant read a memo from MI6. It was odd that they were contacting him now, after weeks of silence, and that this would be their request.<p>

He stared at it suspiciously for a few minutes, before he laid it back down on his desk. It had all the necessary security codes, and it wasn't likely it had been hacked. Still, why would they want him to include this particular activity? Paul's thoughts immediately turned to the potential dangers in this plan. He couldn't refuse them on this count, but he would try his damnedest to make sure nobody got hurt.

* * *

><p>Alex wasn't getting out of bed.<p>

There was no possible way he could even lift his head, let alone get out of bed and participate in the day's activities. He was calling in sick. He could afford to miss a day's activities. It was L-Unit's fault for littering his body with little round bruises from those damn guns.

He'd missed breakfast, and he heard chatter outside as the boys returned to wash up and get ready before the morning activity began. A few minutes later, the door swung open and he heard footsteps before Tom leaned over him. "Are you okay?"

Alex squinted and nodded tiredly. "Feeling a little under the weather."

"Have you...have you been sleeping okay?" Tom asked, seemingly out of nowhere.

Alex blinked. Had he been sleeping well? Not particularly, if he was being honest. He was still having nightmares, though they weren't particularly bad compared to the ones he'd gotten at home. He was too bloody exhausted to have serious nightmares. "I'm a little tired," he said truthfully. "Could you tell L-Unit I'm sick?"

Tom stared at him for a long second, before he cracked a smile. "Poor weakling Alex," he said teasingly, "Do you really think they'll buy that?"

Alex smiled dryly. "They better believe it. I'm blaming them." He yawned.

"Why?" Tom said curiously. "We haven't been doing anything that should be too hard for you."

"During the daytime," Alex said pointedly, but he shut up as a few more boys came in. Instead, he cleared his throat and began coughing, playing up his act. "I feel awful."

Tom, who had been looking a bit confused, nodded in sudden understanding. "I'll tell them, but when they come to get your lazy ass out of bed, you can't say I didn't warn you."

Alex grinned weakly and sneezed a few times for good measure. "I think I'm going to throw up..." he groaned and was pleased to see the other boys in the cabin that were listening in back away. He didn't care if L-Unit came to collect him. He still had his BB gun. He could take them.

* * *

><p>Jackal raised an eyebrow.<p>

Rider was calling in 'sick?' Who the hell did he think he was? L-Unit had decided that they were going to treat him as an unofficial fifth unit member, which meant that he endured what they endured. They were fucking tired, too. They had to teach the little brats, go through normal training, and train Rider at night; they wanted to call in sick too, but they were still out here.

Frog smiled darkly. "Sick, huh?" He'd been hit the most last night during their obstacle course, and he wasn't very sympathetic to Rider at the moment. "Brat."

Jackal nodded at him. "Get him. I don't care what you have to do, he does not get a day off."

As Frog jogged away, Jackal read the report that he'd received from the Sergeant. They were going camping at the end of the week, apparently, so he was to up their survival training. Why they were going camping, he had no bloody idea. Why would he want to spend more time with all of them in a small tent? Teenagers and camping were two of his least favorite things, and now they were combined.

He looked at the seven teenagers in front of him. "Alright, listen the hell up," he barked authoritatively. "On Friday, you should be able to make a shelter, built a fire, get food, recognize what will kill you if you eat it, and survive the night. Today, you will learn how to move without telling the whole damn woods where you are, and tomorrow you will learn how not to kill yourself. If any of you fail me on Friday, you _will_ spend the entire weekend cleaning the bathrooms, understood?"

Seven identical nods.

He turned to Pelican and Mongoose. "Alright, when Rider gets here, we'll go," he said quietly. "Think of something to do tonight in the meantime."

"You could combine today's lessons with the gun," Pelican said. "Moving silently and shooting."

"Yeah, he sounded like a bloody elephant yesterday," Jackal said thoughtfully. "Mongoose, today pull him aside and teach him to fix himself up in case he's bleeding or something. He has to be able to be silent even if he's been shot, or he'll die."

Mongoose nodded, eyes narrowing in concentration. "We should give him one of our emergency first aid kits to carry around with him."

Jackal was about to agree when he heard arguing. All ten of them turned to look at Frog dragging a protesting Alex. He was in jeans and a faded t-shirt, but his hair was mussed from sleep and he looked pissed.

"This is abuse," Alex said, as soon as he reached L-Unit. "I could sue you for this."

"_This_ is what you'd pick?" Mongoose asked sarcastically.

Alex gave him a dirty look. "I'm _sick_," he said through clenched teeth. "Assholes."

"Too fucking bad," Jackal said. "We have a busy agenda today. We're going camping on Friday."

The other kids broke out into excited whispers, but Alex's cheeks rapidly paled. To keep up his charade, or maybe just because he liked to piss them off, Alex shook his head rapidly. "I'm going to be sick then too."

"You and me both," Jackal said. If he had to go camping, Alex had to as well. No arguments. "C'mon, follow Pelican to the car.

They piled in the car, and Alex sat next to Jackal. He spent the entirety of the car ride glaring balefully at Jackal and pointedly coughing, which was obviously bullshit, but Jackal just ignored it. He had bigger things to worry about.

* * *

><p>"Fall," Mongoose muttered to Alex as he showed him how to silently climb a tree by using his weight to mimic the natural rustling and swaying of a tree. "And the wind's coming from the left, you're swinging against it."<p>

Alex swung himself up on the next branch and immediately flattened himself against the wide borough in case somebody was 'watching.' This was actually useful information, and he paid strict attention. Then, Mongoose's first command registered. "Fall?"

"Once you're reasonably high up, but don't hurt yourself," he said quietly. "I need to show you something alone."

Alex nodded and scaled a few more branches. Climbing trees without being detected was reasonably easy for him. He was light, slim, lithe, and he used those attributes to his advantage. When he was moderately high off the ground, he pretended to slip and crashed down, rolling so that no one part of his body was jarred too sharply. "At least you know how to fall," Mongoose said quietly, jumping down. He raised his voice to normal levels and said worriedly, "Damn it, are you alright? If you come back to the car, I'll patch you up."

Alex held his shoulder in feigned agony and followed Mongoose. They began walking towards the car, but halfway there Mongoose turned. "Okay, try following me silently," he said. "The trick is to move your body weight so that you don't come down too heavily; also, see how I'm placing my feet? Roll them, so that your heel hits first - yeah, like that."

Alex copied Mongoose's easy lope, noticing how his center of balance was much lower. This felt awkward to Alex, but after a few hesitant steps he fell easily into the swing of things. It was similar to the way he balanced lightly on the balls of his feet in some karate drills, and he could also immediately notice a slight difference in sound. Alex resolved to keep practicing this.

After a few meters of walking silently, Mongoose waited so that they were side by side and began talking quietly. "The trick to moving unseen is to use your natural surroundings to your advantage. Look for shadows, trees, bushes, whatever. When you're looking for something, never look in a fixed gaze; just sort of watch everything without looking at specifics. You'll see motion."

He kept up the lecture as they walked, and Alex mentally tried to memorize it all. Who knew when this would save his life. When they were fairly far away from the others, Mongoose ended his sentence and turned to Alex. He was holding a small gun, and Alex's eyes flickered to it immediately. He fired, and Alex dropped to the ground in immediate response.

Mongoose. Mongoose was the spy? It didn't make sense, but Alex could hardly focus that as he started running, zigzagging, ducking and moving so that he didn't get hit. His mind sharpened, and he mentally threw off the cloud of exhaustion that was hovering near him. What was he supposed to do -

"Alex! Alex, stop!" Mongoose was calling after him, and Alex sped up. "Alex, it's not real!"

"Like I'm that stupid," Alex called back, reaching for the BB gun he'd shoved in his pocket when Frog had come barreling into the barracks.

He heard Mongoose swear, and a second later he echoed the SAS man as something small hit him in the back. To his surprise, it wasn't a real bullet; he turned around and bent down to pick up a small, yellow, plastic ball.

Mongoose came jogging up a second later, looking properly abashed. "I didn't think that through," he said, holding out the gun he had drawn. Alex took it slowly and examined it. It was definitely a BB gun, and not a real one.

There was an awkward silence as the two regarded each other, Mongoose holding his hands up cautiously. "I was going to teach you tricks for remaining unseen even if you've been shot," said the man apologetically. "I should have warned you."

Alex stared suspiciously for a second before he grinned reluctantly. He had overreacted, but he wasn't going to apologize for that. It could have saved his life. "So you decided to shoot me in the back to prove it wasn't a real gun?"

Mongoose shook his head sheepishly and shrugged. "It worked, didn't it?"

"Guess so," Alex said. "Now, show me how to survive; I have a feeling I'll need those skills."

"Probably," Mongoose agreed dryly, and they got to work.

* * *

><p>The head of Scorpia stared at the spy who was standing in front of him.<p>

"No news," he repeated incredulously. "You've been there for weeks, and you have nothing to report to me?"

The spy did not move. "Everything is proceeding as normal."

"He isn't being trained?" The head asked skeptically, standing and walking around his desk to examine the spy.

"No, sir."

The head stared the spy in the eyes, trying to ferret out the truth, but the spy's eyes were dark and indiscernible. "Dismissed," he snapped, suddenly angry. "Await orders."

The spy inclined his head slightly and retreated from the room. As soon as the door closed, the head withdrew his gun and shot it at an ornament in the corner, feeling much better as it exploded into smithereens. He had put one man - his best - to physically watch Rider while he focused most men on MI6. He was starting to distrust the spy, however. MI6's behavior was adding up with what he had expected. It was time to take matters into his own hands

On his desk lay a memo intercepted from MI6 to the SAS camp. It had been surprisingly easy to get ahold of, but the man was confident they didn't know Scorpia had the letter. The spy was failing to gather any information that would be useful for him, so the head mentally reconfigured the plan. The spy would be taken out, Rider would be captured, and he would finally, _finally_ get rid of MI6 once in for all.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: I'm sorry this took forever. I have two announcements: 1) I make a lot of grammar, spelling, writing and editing errors. R-Gomeni has been awesome in helping me find errors from earlier chapters, and I'm soon going to go back and edit them out. I am officially asking help on that front :) Whether you'd like to proofread, go over past chapters, or tell me when things just don't make sense or sound stupid, I'm begging for your help. You can always leave a review/PM me, but if you're interested in a more beta-esque job, PM me.**

**2) We are officially leaving BB next chapter. I know, I know, it's sad. I'm going to miss some characters. However, we're entering Part II, where Alex and Scorpia actually collide, and the spy gets named so I can stop calling him "the spy." If you've just come to read about Alex and SAS men, I'm sorry that it's soon over. If not, buckle down. It's about to get more complicated.**


	10. Chapter 10

**A/N: I am so sorry. So, so, sorry. I've had this sitting on my computer for ages, and I was trying to add to it, but nothing was coming out quite right. The long wait was awful of me, I know, but my wonderful new beta R-Gomeni and I have hammered out the rest of the plot - so hopefully it is worth it.**

**As this story stands now, I consider Part 1 closed. Part 2, with the introduction of the spy and quite a bit more, should start soon. That being said, I have end of the semester exams coming up, and I'll have to spend all my time studying for those. After that, I hope to write quite a bit over my break, so I wouldn't expect a new chapter for at least a month. Thank you for your patience and wonderful reviews. I hope this is up to your liking. **

* * *

><p>"I can see you."<p>

"Fuck you."

"I can still see you."

"Take a picture, it'll last longer."

"If I was a spy, you'd already be dead."

"If you were a spy, I'd be running like hell."

"I can _still _see you."

"Excuse me for not being invisible."

"You can't see me, can you?"

"...shut up." Alex crouched near the base of a tree, trying to blend in with the shadows. Pelican was the best at moving unseen, no surprises there, but he was also extremely annoying. He could throw his voice, something that both irritated Alex and made him very jealous. He was probably sitting languidly up in some tree, enjoying himself and making Alex do all sorts of things to disappear.

He suddenly dropped down next to Alex and coolly blocked Alex's automatic attack. "Okay, you're not doing it right. It's been three days."

"And how long did it take you?" Alex snapped back, tired and irritated.

Pelican raised an eyebrow. "It came naturally to me, much like your shooting. Oh, don't give me that look," he said dismissively when Alex started to shake his head. "You have a talent; own it. Now here, see how the shadow moves across the side of tree? Try mimicking it."

"I don't want to 'own' any talent with killing people," Alex said softly, more to himself than to Pelican as he obeyed instructions.

Pelican shot him a glance and rearranged his figure so that he melded in with the shadows and appeared to be another bush or branch instead of a man. It was almost scary the way he could blend in with whatever he chose. There was no particular action that Alex could copy; it was more a method of changing posture and holding himself differently. It wasn't as if Pelican suddenly looked like a tree. he simply used the surroundings to blend in, so anybody watching would pass right over him, perhaps believing him to be a shadow or a bush or even an animal. "Well, unfortunately for you, you happen to have a lot of potential in that area," the man said. "That isn't a bad thing for somebody in your line of work."

"Yeah, well, as soon as I'm eighteen it won't be my line of work," Alex said.

Pelican surprised him by barking out a loud laugh. "Who are you kidding? It's as if you've been trained to be a spy from birth, it comes so easily to you. There's no way you'd ever ditch this for more than a year, tops. Now come on, get to the next tree without being blatantly obvious."

Alex used the tricks he'd learned over the past couple of days to sneak to the next tree and swing himself up. He debated telling Pelican that he had been practically trained from birth, what with all the things Ian had made him learn. Sitting with his back against the branch, he sighed softly instead. "You're wrong."

"I'm right, and I know it," Pelican said, copying him and sitting on another branch. "Look, you can't be idealistic. You're going to have to kill people. I'm going to hazard a guess and say you've done it before. Bad people who deserve it, and occasionally good people who get caught in the crossfire."

Alex looked down and twisted his finger into his shoelace. "I won't."

"You will," Pelican said harshly, before he sighed. "It's not going to be easy. I'm not going to lie to you; I started out where you were, except I was eighteen and cocky and arrogant. I ended up here, and I'm not giving it up for the world."

"Why?" Alex asked, and his voice was high, and more than a little childish.

"Because I'm damn good at what I do."

The two of them sat in extended silence for a few minutes. This was the most Alex had ever heard from Pelican in one go, and it was making it difficult for him to maintain his composure.

"Okay, enough of this maudlin crap," Pelican barked a little while later, and without warning, he shoved Alex clear out of the tree. Alex managed to twist himself out of the way of the branch below him and landed on his feet.

"What the hell?"

"Never let down your guard," Pelican lectured, and he jumped lithely down. "Now I'm going to close my eyes and count to ten, and I'm going to use my gun this time if I see you, so you better damn well hide. Embrace your talents, kid, or otherwise you're wasting them. One. Two. Three."

Alex wasted a second staring incredulously at the man before he dashed off to hide.

* * *

><p>Mrs. Jones waited at the train station for K-Unit to arrive. They were scheduled to make a transfer and head directly to Wales, but she had other plans for them.<p>

* * *

><p>While Pelican was off teaching Alex how to conceal himself, two of the members of L-Unit were setting up the camping trip. None of the SAS men in the camp were happy about this little adventure; it would be more accurate to say that they were downright <em>pissed<em>. They grumbled and complained and made snide comments to each other as they dug out sleeping bags and emergency kits from the storage hut in the back. As each unit was supplied with the bare minimum to sustain their four members, they were finding it difficult to produce supplies for 50 odd teenagers.

"Damn it all, some of them are going to sleep on the ground," Frog groused to himself as he walked a few metres away from the other units and dropped some of the supplies. He counted the number of sleeping bags and shook his head. They had six, meaning that all four members and two of the kids would be able to use them. "One night roughing it ain't gonna kill them."

Mongoose recounted the number of bags and pursed his lips, considering. "We could give them the sleeping bags," he said thoughtfully. "I mean, we shouldn't sleep much anyway." At Frog's quizzical look, he elaborated: "Somebody has to keep guard."

Frog couldn't deny that. "Yeah, but only one of us has to stay awake at a time."

"Assuming Jackal got his way."

The two were silent as they continued packing up. They had sent Jackal to convince the Sergeant to keep Alex behind, where it would be much safer. Unfortunately, when Jackal arrived a few minutes later, one glance at his murderously angry face informed the two that the Sergeant hadn't agreed.

"What happened?" Mongoose asked.

Jackal swore angrily to himself, kicking over a lantern. "He claims his hands are tied. Bloody hell, like that's ever stopped him."

"Who's tying his hands?"

"Damned if I know," Jackal answered, a sneer marring his normally handsome face. "He was being awfully cryptic. I don't think he even knows."

Frog couldn't contain himself and burst out, "Doesn't he realize how dangerous that is?"

"Yeah, well, he says nothing will happen if we stay vigilant," Jackal snapped back.

"Tell him we can't guard against a bloody terrorist organization!" Frog said, more loudly than he should have, prompting Mongoose to quickly around for listeners. Luckily, they were alone.

"Oh, you think I didn't try? You go then, if you're such a diplomat!"

"I'm just saying, it's a kid's life here, if you hadn't done such a shitty job - "

Mongoose held up his hands to try to calm the pair down. "Shut up, both of you. There's nothing we can do, we just have to be diligent."

"Diligent my ass, we better hope nothing bad happens," Jackal said angrily, glaring balefully at the pile of sleeping bags.

Mongoose hoped fervently that everything would go as planned tomorrow night.

* * *

><p>Alex smiled weakly as the members of his unit chattered excitedly away about the camping trip. Even Tom was talking loudly with Colin about whether they'd see any cool animals at night. Alex stayed silent, mind racing, trying to plan for any potential dangers.<p>

It was going to be okay. It had to be. There were going to be at least five or six units present, all within close proximity to each other, and nearly fifty kids. Scorpia couldn't risk any sort of attack. They would never get him alone, and even if they did, he wouldn't go down without a fight. If they tried to shoot him, the SAS men would be there instantly.

He plastered a more convincing grin on his face and tried to join Tom's conversation. He hoped that the most exciting thing they'd see all night would be an owl. His stomach twisted nervously, and despite himself, he sent a look up towards the sky. Alex wasn't religious, not in the slightest, but he prayed - for everybody's sake, not just his own - that tonight would be as uneventful as possible.

* * *

><p>A small unit of trained men got into position.<p>

* * *

><p>The spy cursed to himself as he read an intercepted message. Goddammit, this was not part of his plan! Had Scorpia completely lost their <em>minds<em>?

He checked the ammunition in his gun and reached for his duffle bag of supplies. He had a feeling he was going to need it. He would not let Alex Rider die, not when he was going to be so valuable to him - even if it meant turning traitor. Although, the spy mused with a dangerous smile, dead men tell no tales.

* * *

><p>They traipsed through the thick undergrowth in the forest, cursing and flinching as thorns scratched them and they stepped in wet puddles of mud. Alex had been smart and worn thick but supple jeans that he could potentially wear for a long period of time - just in case he had to run and lay low for a couple of days. He was also wearing an undershirt underneath a cotton long sleeved shirt, and he carried a light jacket. His SAS-issued boots were laced up tightly, and he had extra laces tied around a belt loop. He was not going to be caught unprepared.<p>

The others were not dressed nearly as well. Mud girl - he'd long since forgotten her name - was dressed in tights and shorts, which both looked uncomfortable and didn't seem to protect her at all. There were already rips forming near the ankles, and her shrieks were grating on his nerves. Brooke was dressed a bit more sensibly, with jeans and a t-shirt, but she had forgone the army boots in favour of trainers which would undoubtedly be wet by tomorrow. The boys (excluding Jeremy) were dressed similarly to Alex because they had gotten ready together, but Alex was definitely carrying more supplies. His backpack weighed a good ten pounds more than Tom's.

L-Unit were sporting matching grim expressions, which did nothing to deter the teenagers from exclaiming about everything loudly and excitedly. After the sixth time one of the girls pointed out how pretty the stars looked, Jackal turned around and shouted that if she didn't shut up, they were going to leave them there to look at the stars by themselves. She'd defiantly said "Fine," clearly believing it was a bluff, and then without a word L-Unit had turned and walked briskly away, leaving the teenagers alone. Of course, they didn't go far; Alex spotted them hiding not a metre away. Still, it shut her up when they appeared a few minutes later.

His stomach was growling by the time they'd found the campsite, and perhaps noticing this, Jackal appointed him Head Chef. Alex recruited Tom and Colin to help him build a fire. Poking around at the fire, he tried to scan the area around him to see if he could spot anything.

"Hey, do you remember where this goes?" Tom asked suddenly, making Alex jump and nearly hit him. His reflexes were stretched tightly, and he had almost reacted without thinking. "Whoa, you okay?"

"Yeah," Alex muttered tightly, all too aware of L-Unit's eyes on him. "Just a bit tired."

Colin leaned in from around Tom with a shifty grin. "Better not be too tired; we're going to stay up late," he confided, "We're going to go for a...walk. An adventure."

"No," Alex said immediately. Go for a _walk_? Were they insane?

Colin pulled back, looking a bit affronted. "I mean, you don't have to come," he said. "But come on, we're going camping! Might as well have some fun."

How could he even begin to explain why going for a walk was a completely shoddy idea? Entirely too tense to attempt to be nice, Alex snapped, "That's a stupid idea," and turned away from the two.

He didn't have to have eyes in the back of his head to know Tom and Colin were exchanging confused looks. Did he really care? He'd apologize tomorrow, if everything went off without a hitch. If not, he would have bigger things to worry about than hurt feelings. Dropping the stick he was poking the fire with, Alex got up and walked over to L-Unit. "Did you hear that?"

Jackal shook his head. "What happened?"

"They're planning a midnight stroll," Alex said harshly, rubbing at his eyes.

"So? Stop them."

"You stop them," Alex snapped before he could stop himself. He groaned a second later and shook his head. "Sorry."

"I know you're worried but there's no call for you to be a brat," Pelican said from Jackal's side. "Go make up with them. You need to keep an eye on them in case anything happens."

"Here," Mongoose added, digging a deck of cards out of his pocket and tossing them at Alex. "Distract them."

He caught the cards nimbly and paused, searching for words. Was there anything to say? Jackal solved the problem by giving him a little shove. "Go."

"Gone," Alex replied, turning back to where the other seven teenagers were gathered together. He took a deep breath and managed a reasonably authentic smile, walking up to them. "Hey, Mongoose gave me some cards; want to play?"

"Sure it's not a stupid idea?" Colin said immediately, raising a challenging eyebrow.

Alex sighed and shook his head. "Sorry I got mad, I'm just pretty tired."

Colin stared at him for a second, evaluating his apology, before an easy grin slid back across his face. "Fair enough. What should we play?"

"Poker," Jeremy said instantly, and the others quickly agreed.

As Alex dealt, he kept looking around him. He felt as if somebody was watching him, and while L-Unit was undoubtedly keeping an eye on him, the sensation was different. He scanned the trees, but there was nobody there. Still, he couldn't shake the feeling that he was under strict surveillance.

He just hoped he was wrong.

* * *

><p>Frog yawned and stretched from his position in the tree, releasing his gun momentarily to crack his cramping fingers. He rubbed his face with one hand, slapping himself lightly to keep himself awake. It was bloody cold, which was probably the only reason he was still awake.<p>

The light in the boys' tent had finally gone out about an hour ago, and the whispering had stopped shortly after. Frog couldn't help but smile fondly as he remembered some of the more interesting camping trips he'd had with L-Unit. In order for a unit to complete training, they literally had to know each other better than they knew themselves, and forcing the units to spend night after night cooped up in a tiny shelter was one of the Sergeant's preferred methods to build intimacy. It was cheap, easy and effective...and if the unit didn't kill each other by morning, it was a good sign that they could work together. Frog knew how difficult it was to go to sleep when camping, but he was glad everybody was asleep. It would make them easier to protect.

Speaking of protecting... Frog tightened his grip on his gun and vigilantly looked around him. He was the member on watch for their unit, though he doubted the other members were truly sleeping. About a hundred meters away, if he looked through his binoculars, he could see Bear, one of the other SAS men, keeping watch as well. It was one of the safety measures the Sergeant had insisted on, and one that Frog was very thankful for at the moment.

He _hated_ being the one on watch. There was something strangely eerie about being alone with his thoughts up a tree, with the cold air biting his face and every crackle and cricket making him jump. He always felt as if the darkness was hiding a million men that could attack at any moment.

Shaking his head, Frog refocused his attention, scanning the ground. It was freezing, and he muffled a cough in his sleeve. He wanted to be in bed at the camp, not here. He was definitely going to catch a cold. He wrinkled his nose as the urge to sneeze overwhelmed him, and when he sneezed violently, he failed to notice the dart that buried itself insidiously in his neck.

One of Scorpia's men nodded to himself. He'd timed his attack to coincide with the man - Frog, he was called - sneezing, knowing it was impossible to keep one's eyes open during a sneeze. The man watched Frog slump against the trunk of the tree, looking for all the world as if he'd dozed off.

Half an hour later, Mongoose left the tent to relieve Frog. He noticed the slumped figure immediately and rolled his eyes. Frog had never been good at keeping watch. Thank God nothing had happened during Frog's slumber.

Mongoose, who was more alert than Frog had been, noticed the glint of the dart as it whizzed towards him, and managed to avoid it. He started running as he'd been taught, ducking and jumping and making erratic moves, but the second dart caught him in the back and he fell painfully to the ground.

Pelican and Jackal heard Mongoose fall, and they were immediately alert. "Fuck," Pelican swore under his breath, making eye contact with Jackal and nodding. Pelican cupped his hands around his mouth and made a faint hooting sound, a technique that was cliché but effective. When there was no response, the two grabbed guns and prepared to attack.

"Alex," Jackal mouthed, and Pelican nodded. He'd take Alex's tent, and Jackal would go after the attacker. The two counted to three inside their head and ducked out of opposite sides of the tent, intent on their mission.

Pelican sprinted to Alex's tent and kicked the bottom of it, hoping that would be enough to rouse Alex from his sleep. A dart came flying by, and he turned and began shooting at his attacker. He had a silencer, but in the dead of night, it was still possible to hear the sound.

What was very audible, however, was the sound of the Scorpia agent falling out of the tree a second later. Pelican smiled grimly. He was a good shot. The tent unzipped, and Alex poked his head out, looking simultaneously alert and scared.

"Attack, unknown number of assailants, Mongoose and likely Frog down," Pelican muttered before Alex could ask anything. He took a small hand gun out of its holster and handed it to Alex. "Stay here, keep the kids safe."

Alex's face hardened. "I'm coming with you."

"They're more important," Pelican said sharply, locking eyes with Alex. "As are you. Protect them, and yourself."

After a tense second, Alex nodded, and Pelican began jogging away. He had to protect the teenagers; it was his job.

* * *

><p>If the spy had been watching the attack from afar, he would have been cursing and swearing and tearing his hair out in frustration. However, he was in the midst of things as a good, faithful Scorpia agent should, and he didn't have time to wonder incredulously at how badly this job was unfolding. There were men everywhere, subduing the other units, and the sound of bullets from Alex's campsite informed him that one man had found somebody wandering out of bed. He hoped they had implicit instructions not to kill the children - that wasn't Scorpia's style - but with the shoddy way business was unfolding, the spy wouldn't be surprised if they had a small genocide on their hands.<p>

"Follow," he whispered, nearly imperceptibly, to one of the other masked men. He wasn't sure who he was talking to, but it wasn't important. The spy wasn't attached to any of them. "I know the target's likely location."

The masked man shook his head.

"I was assigned to his case," the spy said insistently. "I know his movements."

The masked man hesitated, but he nodded after a long second. The spy rolled his eyes; must be a recruit on his first mission. The spy would never have fallen for something like this. The spy nodded towards a deeper part of the woods, and the two men began quietly making their way further from the camp.

When they were sufficiently far enough, the spy turned back to the masked man. "What were the orders on the target?"

"Alive, and unhurt," said the masked man. The spy furrowed his brow. Why would they be taking in Rider now? What prompted this move? Why had he heard bullets? His mind worked rapidly, trying to put together all the clues.

"Stay here - wait. I'll find him. Signal if target is spotted."

The masked man nodded and turned. The second he was facing the other way, the spy put a bullet through the man's head. He died instantly, and the spy moved on.

He needed to find and retrieve Rider before Scorpia got their hands on him. Hopefully in a way that would allow him to maintain the pretense of being loyal to Scorpia. Rider was essential to his plan, and he needed him now.

* * *

><p>Inside the tent, Alex swore nervously and looked around. Three sleeping boys surrounded him. He had to get them out, dammit, but how could he do that? Could he manage to preserve his facade of normality?<p>

Alex chewed his lip, and then quickly made a decision. He would try to keep them from knowing the danger they were in. Kicking Tom, he waited as his friend opened an affronted eye and spat out, "What?"

"Let's go, hurry."

"What?"

"For our adventure," Alex said faux-excitedly. "Come on, L-Unit's changing guard, it's our only chance."

Suddenly awake, Tom sat up and grinned widely. "You're in?"

"Hell yeah," Alex replied, pasting a smile onto his face. "Go get the girls, I'll keep an eye on L-Unit."

Tom nodded and shook Colin awake. As Colin opened his eyes with a groan, Alex slipped outside, holding the small handgun in preparation.

He saw Mongoose's prone body and spotted Frog's slumped one not too long after. Pelican and Jackal were nowhere to be seen, and he could only assume they weren't safe. _Always assume the worst. _The lessons that had been drilled into him swam back inside, and he spent a few precious moments breathing deeply.

He had to get everybody out alive.

Where could they go? Alex quickly whipped out his cellphone and sent a distress signal to MI6. They could provide safety. He slipped the phone back into his jeans, hoping that they would reply soon with a plan.

The boys trailed out of the tent, looking jazzed up in a late-night adventure sort of way, talking way too loudly and looking excited. "_Shh!" _Alex said harshly, and they shut up, surprised. "If L-Unit catches us, we're toast!"

"He's right," Colin whispered, although it sounded like shouting to Alex's ears. "I'll go get the girls."

They waited for what seemed like an eternity before Colin returned, four girls in tow. They were all wearing their pajamas and sweatshirts and looked cold, but they had the foresight not to be loud. Colin had undoubtedly warned them.

"I know a really good place," Alex said, the beginning of a plan sneaking into his head. If he could just get them back to camp, they would be solid. "I noticed it while we were walking here. It's one of those little clearings, and it has a stream..."

"Wicked," Tom murmured. "Lead the way."

They trooped along, with Alex gnashing his teeth at every stumble or giggle or swear. _He_ was the one responsible for their lives. Who knew, a Scorpia agent might have their gun on them at the moment. He sped up. The faster they got away, the better.

After about ten minutes of walking, he heard crackling from the left. Alex turned instinctively, his hand going to the gun he'd hidden in his jacket, but the man that stepped out was Jackal.

The other seven teenagers quieted instantly. Jackal had a long scratch running down his face, and from the way he was holding his arm, Alex could tell that he'd been shot or at the very least grazed by a bullet. "Alex," he said, and though he was doubtlessly in pain, authority still rang through his voice. "What is the meaning of this?"

"We just wanted some fun..."

Jackal's lips thinned in displeasure. "Come here."

Alex stepped forward and Jackal drew him slightly away. "I'll follow. Get them to camp."

"I will," Alex said, before he hesitated. "Mongoose...and Frog..."

"I don't know. Now go. I'm right behind you."

Alex nodded and returned to the group. Affixing a smile to his face, he said, "He said it was okay if we didn't tell the Sergeant."

"Like we'd do that," Colin snorted. "C'mon, let's keep going."

* * *

><p>The spy watched the little band of teenagers make their way out of the forest. <em>Good boy<em>, he thought approvingly as Rider managed to look excited and keep a vigilant watch. Rider would do just fine in the role the spy wanted him in.

He caught sight of another Scorpia agent cocking his gun, and the spy reacted instantly. A bullet later, the man was falling, the teenagers were screaming, and everything was going to hell.

A body crashed to the ground in front of them, bleeding and clearly dead. Alex jumped back in surprise and immediately pivoted, looking for the shooter. The man was wearing nondescript clothes, so he clearly wasn't part of SAS. Had Jackal shot him?

In the meantime, Brooke, who was nearest, screamed as realization hit her, and the sound was picked up by the other six. The racket the scared teenagers made felt like a large arrow pointing to Alex, and he was grateful when, a second later, Jackal materialized. "Run," he said urgently, and there was no argument.

They ran like hell, sprinting to get out. A shot echoed above their heads and Jeremy dropped to the ground, flattening himself and covering his head. "They're shooting at us, oh my god, what's happening?"

"Get the fuck up!" Alex snapped, not having time to mince words. "Keep going!"

"No, they're shooting at us!"

"And you're making yourself a target!" Alex yanked at Jeremy's arm, but the idiot refused to move.

Two of the girls were softly crying, and Colin's face was dead white. "Jackal!" Brooke started yelling. "Jackal, Pelican, Frog, Mongoose! Somebody help!"

"Keep going!" Alex said harshly, but they ignored him.

Jackal appeared, bleeding even more profusely, and took in the situation. He locked eyes with Alex, who shook his head slightly. They weren't all going to get out of the forest. They were too far away from the road on one end, and not close enough to the exit on the other. "Huddle together. Near the tree," Jackal ordered tersely. The teenagers obeyed, too scared to do anything. There were footsteps and Jackal spun, cocking his gun, as Pelican burst into the clearing. He gasped out, "Three. On my tail. I don't know how many more."

Jackal swore and was about to bark out an order when he crumpled to the ground. Brooke screamed piercingly, and Pelican immediately unloaded bullets in the direction of the attacker.

"We have to go, now," he said, and nobody, not even Jeremy, argued. They ran even faster than they had before, but Alex knew that it wasn't enough. He could hear their pursuers gaining on them.

From Pelican's expression, he'd heard them too. "Keep running," he ordered, and he sprinted off in another direction.

Alex kept running and, despite himself, cried out when a shot echoed near him. Alex didn't think about the consequences of revealing himself; he drew the gun Pelican had given him and began shooting. He hit one of them in shoulder and threw himself to the ground as his target retaliated. Scorpia men were hardened. They would continue shooting until they were incapacitated.

Colin looked at him with terrified eyes. "Alex - Alex, what are you doing? Why do you have that? Alex!"

Alex didn't spare any time to answer as the man shooting him dropped from the trees above. "Step away from Rider, and you won't get hurt," the Scorpia agent said, cocking his gun.

Tom threw him a wild look and shook his head. "No, Alex, stop - "

Before he could stop himself, Alex pulled the trigger and the man in front of him crumpled instantly. _He'd killed him. _He stared at the gun in horror and backed away from the man he'd killed. Alex had killed before, but never like this, and never in front of his friends -

A scream of horror from one of the girls snapped him out of it, and he turned on them with a commanding glare. "Quiet," he snapped, and responding instinctively to the authoritative tone in his voice, the teenagers silenced themselves instantly. "We need to get out of the forest."

When nobody moved, Alex brandished his gun to shock them. "Run!"

They ran, but it wasn't long before bullets started spraying the path in front of them. Curiously enough, none of them got hurt; it seemed as though Scorpia didn't want any inexplicable casualties on their part. The teenagers froze, terrified, and automatically looked to Alex for guidance as three men stepped out. Alex snapped at them to get down.

Holding up his hands, he stepped forward. "What do you want?"

"Drop the gun."

Alex hesitated, glancing at Tom and the rest cowering on the ground.

"Drop it, and they won't get hurt."

He reluctantly dropped the gun and kicked it out of the way. Defenseless, he tried to calm his breathing and evaluate the situation. _Think, think_. Where was Pelican?

His question was answered a few seconds later as one of the Scorpia men turned swiftly at something and shot into the forest. Alex eyed his gun desperately, wondering if he could run at it while they were distracted.

Pelican burst into the clearing a second later to stand in front of Alex defensively, cocking his gun. "Let the kids go."

"All we need is Rider," said one of the men expressionlessly. "Give him to us, and you can go."

"No."

"Yes," Alex said and stepped forward.

"Get back," Pelican ordered tersely, but Alex paid him no attention. They weren't going to hurt him; he was too valuable for that. They wouldn't hesitate to kill Pelican, and Alex wasn't going to let anybody else die on his behalf.

"Get the rest of the kids out," Alex countered. The other fifty-odd teenagers must have awoken by now, which meant they were in danger too. "I'll be fine."

MI6 should be on their way, and Alex wasn't going to go down without a fight.

"Listen to the boy," said the Scorpia agent in amusement. "He won't be hurt."

Pelican's shoulders slumped in defeat and he turned to face the rest of the teenagers. Alex took a cautious step towards the Scorpia agents, when two things happened simultaneously.

First, Pelican spun back around and shot one of the men, and secondly, the Scorpia agent that had been talking shot at Pelican a second later. Pelican dodged, and the bullet missed his heart but imbedded itself in his shoulder instead.

The two remaining Scorpia men instantly attacked Alex, who shouted furiously at the wide-eyed, crying teenagers to get the hell out of there. This time, they obeyed without question.

Alex dodged the first hit and lashed out, suddenly very, very glad of the training that L-Unit had forced upon him. It was dark and difficult to see, and he relied on his other senses to alert him when something was about to happen. Alex swore as one of the men landed a hard punch on his shoulder, and he retaliated by snapping back a kick.

His eyes narrowed, his gaze sharpened, and that cold feeling that almost led to Frog's death crept over him again. This time, however, he welcomed it.

Alex was deadly as he dodged and punched and kicked, aiming for the eyes, the throat, the knees. He was aiming to kill, and he felt no remorse about it, shoving all emotion to the back of his mind where it wouldn't distract him. It was two on one but he was small and lithe and dangerous, and he used their bulk and momentum against them.

For a second, he appeared to be getting the upper hand. He slammed the palm of his hand against one man's chin and shoved upwards, watching the man's head snap back with dispassionate enjoyment. He followed that up by two quick jabs in his chest and spun around, lashing out with his back foot and sending the man flying to the ground. The other man lunged at him, but Alex nimbly danced out of the way and avoided the potentially lethal fist heading towards his head.

And then, the advantage flipped, and he found himself trapped in between two enraged men. They rained blows on him, and he cried out in pain despite himself as he felt his mouth begin to bleed and then his shoulder snap briefly out of place. Alex clawed and scratched wildly - all he needed was a finger in the eye or a kick in the groin - but they were stronger than him and he began to worry that he wasn't going to succeed.

Suddenly, one of the men seemed to fly away, and he blinked, disorientated, until he realized what happened. Pelican had summoned enough strength to ram into one of the men and was restraining him, but the ashen look on his face informed both Alex and the Scorpia agents that his strength would not last long.

"Go," he shouted, but the man still attacking Alex managed to catch his arms in a bind. Alex cried out in horror as another shot echoed and Pelican fell away from the other Scorpia man. _He couldn't be dead_. _He must just be unconscious!_

Alex kicked back and slid his heel painfully down the man's shin, stepping hard on his foot at the end. The man's grip loosened slightly, and Alex twisted away, diving for where he hoped his gun was still lying on the forest floor.

Scrabbling wildly as the Scorpia agent approached, his fingers closed around the cool metal and he lifted the gun up, shooting the man three times in the chest. Next, he took careful aim at the man who had been fighting with Pelican, but the man fell to the floor before Alex could pull the trigger.

Cool metal pressed into Alex's back. "You might want to drop the gun," an unfamiliar voice ordered.

Alex briefly thought about resisting, but the gun pressed harder into his back and he reluctantly dropped the gun.

"Are all of the Scorpia men dead?"

"Who are you?" Alex demanded instead. The man with the gun had killed the Scorpia agents, but he was also threatening to kill Alex. Was there a third side in his infernal conflict that Alex didn't know about?

The man chuckled. "All will be explained soon, dear Alex, but first, we need to get out of here. It's not safe."

"Who are you?"

"Somebody on your side."

"If you're on my side, let me go."

The man tsked softly. "Do you think I am a fool, Alex? If I let you go, you will try to kill me. No, it is best that we talk somewhere away from this mess. You can either cooperate or I shall drug you."

Alex shook his head rapidly. He needed his wits about him; he couldn't afford to be drugged. "I'm cooperating."

"Good," the man said and began walking Alex out of the clearing.

* * *

><p>Tom wasn't going to lie; he was close to tears.<p>

In all fairness, who wouldn't be? He had just seen his best friend attempt to take down men who had already killed soldiers. Tom wiped his hand roughly across his face for what must have been the millionth time, smearing dirt on his cheek. His breath was coming in hiccuping spurts, and he had a stitch in his side from running, but he had to calm down. He had to! He was the only person Alex had left. He had to take control; he was the only one that could do it. Alex _trusted _him to keep his secrets safe, and Tom would - if he could just calm the fuck down!

"Goddammit!" Tom yelled at the ground, irrationally angry at everything. Why had they been attacked? Why hadn't Alex told him something was going to happen? Why had the soldiers been so utterly useless? It wasn't fair, damn it all, and what if Alex got hurt? He didn't have to be the hero all the time -

_Shut up_. Tom visibly struggled to calm himself as he drew in a long breath. He had to calm down, for Alex's sake. There had to be a way to keep the others from talking about their experiences. Alex's identity had to be protected.

He turned to the side. The other members were sitting huddled together. Even Jeremy's previous obnoxious behavior had been forgotten in favor of solidarity. They were completely, one hundred and ten percent lost, and Tom knew that somebody would have to take charge.

To the left of him, Colin appeared to be reaching the same conclusion, but for the wrong reason. As much as Tom just wanted to sit down and let somebody else take charge, he knew he had to do something.

"We're lost," he stated, rather unnecessarily.

"No shit, Sherlock," Jeremy snapped, and if it sounded a little choked, well, Tom couldn't really say anything.

Although he could acknowledge that Jeremy was a jerk. "We need to get out here," Tom continued. "If we get to camp, the other soldiers can help find Alex."

Brooke let out a little sob at that and one of the girls, Lauren, tightened her hold on her friend. Colin stared resolutely at the ground, and Jeremy was apparently not done being a bastard. "What's the point? He's probably dead by now, I mean, what the hell was the weakling thinking?"

"Goddammit, are you an idiot?" Colin burst out, his face pale. He was sweating and shivering and wiped an unsteady hand on his face. "He had a _gun_, Jeremy, he's not a weakling, he was in on this from the start - "

"No," Brooke disagreed, sniffing. "No, there's no way - "

"He had a gun!" Colin insisted, and his voice encroached on hysteria. "He killed somebody! He just shot at him and the man died!"

Tom tried to interject, but Colin wouldn't let him.

"Two of the men were fighting him! Are you blind? There're after him. Why would they be after _Alex_?"

"Colin - " Tom tried, but he was interrupted.

"At the school," said Lauren, who was still holding Brooke. She didn't speak up very often - in all truthfulness, Tom wasn't even sure her name was Lauren - but now her voice was cold. "They wanted him, that first day."

"Gangs," scoffed Jeremy, but his voice was higher than usual. "You think they came after him?"

"Guys!" Tom'd had enough, and his insistent cry was enough to quiet the others, at least momentarily. "Okay. You have to listen to me."

Brooke turned to him with a sort of wild hope. "You know what's going on, don't you, Tom? You're his best friend, he must have told you if he was involved in a gang...is it drugs? Money?"

"Yes," Tom said, lips dry. Tom prided himself on his ability to lie. He might not be able to do it as seamlessly as Alex, but he'd spent years fooling teachers and classmates and parents, and he could do it now. His heartbeat was settling and although he was scared out of his mind, he was starting to be able to think at things more calmly. "It's money. His, uh, parents were super rich, and now that he's getting older, he'll be able to inherit it all soon, and he got involved in a gang this summer - I mean, he was bored, you can't really blame him, he didn't mean for it to get serious - and he thought he could trust them, and so he told them, and they found out, and now they want the money..."

His explanation was a bit convoluted and long, and he'd filched part of it from a television show he'd watched over the summer, but he looked convincing enough for them to nod.

"It makes sense," said Colin, who was beginning to look more calm. Despite what his teachers always told him, Tom thought to himself, teenagers were capable of calming themselves down. Tom guessed it might have to do with shock or something more than everything. It would probably hit him later, when Alex was back.

Alex...

"We have to go," Tom said, and he knew that the sudden change of subject was probably worrying them, but he didn't care. He suddenly realized how long they'd been sitting there.

"What? We're only going to get more lost."

"Yeah," Tom whispered, "But we're being so loud - they're going to find us soon."

"You have that one right," said a voice, and he spun around to see a man with a gun leaning against a tree. Tom jumped back defensively - but what could he do? The man smirked, raised his gun, and remarked, "Teenagers are extraordinarily unobservant about some things."

A dart was fired, and then Tom's vision blurred black and he fell to the ground.

* * *

><p>Jackal cracked open an eye and groaned.<p>

As was a long-standing habit, he mentally checked himself over. He wiggled his toes and fingers, blinked a few times, did a few math problems and evaluated his body for any aches and pains.

He was relatively certain that 1896 divided by 3 was somewhere around 631 or 632, but then again, math had never been his strong point. Pelican was often the one that did the thinking in the group; Jackal provided the brawn.

Thinking of Pelican triggered his memory, and he shut his eyes tightly as the memory of the past couple of minutes - hours? - flooded back into his brain in the hazy, blurry way that he was unfortunately entirely too used to experiencing. Clearly, Jackal spent too much time recovering from being unconscious.

Why was he unconscious, anyway? He should be dead, as he distinctly remembered being shot. Instinctively, he put his hand up to his chest where he remembered being hit, but there was nothing there except for a strange sort of rash.

His head was still blurred, but as he narrowed his eyes and thought back to his training, he remembered learning about this rash. It was the result of a type of sedative that often reacted badly with the body's natural defenses and produced an unfortunate side effect that was similar to an allergic reaction. Why had Scorpia shot him with a dart instead of a bullet? Why was he still alive?

Jackal pushed himself into a sitting position, blinking rapidly to overwhelm the black shapes that overwhelmed his vision for a second. Where was everybody else? It was eerily quiet and he was alone.

Where was Alex?

Jackal swore as a sense of urgency retook him. The first couple of minutes after awakening from a sedative were always rather slow and lethargic, but Jackal's worry quickly overwhelmed those lingering effects. He stood up, stumbling slightly, and looked around him.

Okay. Where did he see Alex last? He was shouting at him when he got shot. If Alex had followed his directions, Alex would have tried to take the kids out of the forest. If Jackal was remembering right, that would have meant they would have headed south...or was it northeast?

He squinted in the two opposing directions before picking one. He didn't have a gun, which made him move cautiously. Who knew if there were any men left?

After half an hour of walking, Jackal stumbled onto a very welcome sight: the prone figure of Pelican, lying spread-eagled on the ground. Jackal knelt to check his teammate over. While Pelican looked considerably worse off than Jackal, his pulse was strong and steady and his complexion, while pale, didn't suggest too much blood loss. Jackal quickly discovered the bullet wound on his shoulder and took off his shirt to wrap around the limb to stem the bleeding. Damn, where was Mongoose? Why had Pelican been shot by a bullet and not a dart, but still left alive?

Jackal shook Pelican gently but roughly and was pleased to see the other man stir awake. "Jackal?" Pelican mumbled, disorientated.

"What's 1896 divided by 3?"

There was a pause, which Jackal used to help prop Pelican up. Blinking dazedly, Pelican furrowed his brow as memories began to flood back in, or so Jackal assumed. "Uh...sixty hundred and thirty two, why?" Pelican answered after a few seconds. Jackal nodded, pleased.

"Are you okay?"

"I'll be fine," Pelican said, reaching for his wound with his unharmed hand. Jackal didn't miss the fact that he didn't say he was currently fine, but let it go. Pelican would have informed him if he had any serious injuries. Jackal smiled mirthlessly as he remembered one of the Sergeant's favorite sayings: _Pride does nothing but get you killed in this game_.

Trusting Pelican's judgement, he asked instead, "Where are the others?"

Pelican blinked hazily before sitting up urgently. "Alex!" Pulling on Jackal for support, the man immediately climbed to his feet, stumbling but regaining his balance. "We should check the camp."

This wasn't what Jackal was expecting. "Why? They wouldn't have returned there."

"Yes, but Mongoose and Frog are there," Pelican pointed out. Clarity had returned, it seemed. Jackal was bloody thankful, as his head was throbbing and he didn't think he would last very long. Pelican continued thoughtfully, "As are our radios. That way we can just radio to base and see if they made it back."

Jackal nodded. This was the reason why Pelican often made most of their plans. "Right, that makes sense. Can you walk?"

Pelican's disdainful look was Jackal's only reply. As the two walked towards where the camp should be, they discussed in low voices what happened, putting together their information to try and formulate a complete picture. Scorpia had attacked, that much was obvious, but where had the other units been? There had been about six other SAS teams in the forest. Had they all been taken out? Also, why hadn't anybody been killed?

Jackal broke into a jog as the camp came into view, though he was still feeling dizzy. Mongoose's form was bloody and crumpled, and Pelican and Jackal shared a worried look as they knelt next to their comrade. There hadn't been any blood earlier when Jackal had checked, only a dart which Jackal had carefully pulled out before swabbing and bandaging the small wound left behind. What had happened when they had been chasing after Alex?

Mongoose was clearly worse off than the both of them, that was for certain. His entire left side was covered in dark blood, and he had a nasty cut on his forehead. "Mongoose? C'mon, mate, wake up," Jackal said as he pressed his fingers to Mongoose's neck, searching for a pulse. "What happened?"

Pelican got up and ran towards the tent, coming back with an emergency first aid kit. His face was pale and he was sweating, clearly in pain, but he ignored his own injury as he tried to stem the blood. The bullet in Mongoose was a little below his collarbone, above his heart. Mongoose's eyes were closed and when Pelican put his hand in front of the man's nose, he couldn't feel anything.

"Jackal," Pelican started to say, but he stopped. The other man was trembling, his fingers pressing painfully into Mongoose's neck, and his face was a chalky white.

Jackal started to shake his head almost subconsciously, fingers still pressing on Mongoose. "No, goddammit, check!" He grabbed Pelican's wrist, bring it down to Mongoose's neck. Jackal's eyes were wide and bright and he suddenly looked years younger, like he did when they had just been assigned to the same unit and were still uneasy and shy around each other.

Pelican obeyed, unsure what to do. His fingers found the pulse point on Mongoose's next with an ease borne from years of practice, but even before he held them there, he knew he wouldn't feel anything.

They'd killed him.

The bastards had killed him.

Even without communicating, Jackal understood the second Pelican looked down at Mongoose and didn't meet his eyes. The two of them had seen many people die, more so than either would care to admit, and many of those people had been friends.

A unit member, though, was different, and as Pelican stared down at the still form of Mongoose, all he could summon up was anger. Mongoose was somebody he knew as well as he knew himself, somebody he'd spent almost every minute with - waking and otherwise - from that moment years ago when they'd been assigned to the same unit. They'd gone through training together, missions, vacations and more; they'd been tortured together and recovered together and killed together and now one of them was dead.

He should have been feeling grief, but Pelican couldn't - not yet, anyway. All he could focus on was the anger that Mongoose's death had evoked, an anger that he saw reflected in Jackal's eyes. That anger carried him through the next hour, when they discovered Frog's cold body still lying in that tree, lips blue from the poison they'd shot him with, his eyes open and glassy and his face looking terribly young. That terrible, all-encompassing hatred forced any thoughts of his own injury out of his head as Jackal and Pelican visited each camp site to find each empty, the emergency evacuation plan executed. There were no more dead bodies, although there were quite a few unconscious yet otherwise unharmed ones, but the anger still remained and drove the two back to base, where they were confronted with the Sergeant's stony face and the news that Alex Rider and his friends had not yet returned.

The Sergeant had to physically restrain them from going after the teenagers, forcing a sleeping pill down each of their throats, and as Pelican drifted off to sleep, he swore revenge.

Those bastards would pay, and he would take great delight in forcing them to do so.


	11. Chapter 11

**A/N: I am so sorry this took forever. I had no excuse, except that writer's block happens to the best of us. I hope y'all enjoy this chapter anyhow; this is officially the last chapter that happens at camp (for Alex, at least). This should probably answer a few of your questions, and likely bring up some more...:)**

**Thank you for all of your encouraging, supportive and helpful reviews!**

* * *

><p>Alex walked in front of the mysterious man, uncomfortably aware of the gun at his back. His face was impassive, but he was taking in his surroundings keenly, knowing that if he only had one shot to run he couldn't afford to get lost. The man had forced him to walk for ages and Alex estimated that they were almost at the end of the forest. He wasn't entirely sure what came after the boundaries of the forest ended, but there would either be people or relatively open space. Since he preferred neither outcome, he would somehow have to escape back to camp. The forest was about ten miles, or roughly 16,000 metres in diameter, assuming that his mental map was correct and they were walking in a relatively straight line through the shorter edge of the forest.<p>

The gun jabbed harder into Alex's back as he stumbled over a rock, and he stiffened reflexively at the touch of metal. He could recognize it even through the layers of cloth; it appeared that he had become rather too intimately acquainted with the touch of a gun in his life. Who was the man behind it? Alex didn't think he was necessarily from Scorpia, unless this was another plot to win his trust and bring him in. He'd seen the man kill at least one Scorpia agent...although Scorpia was cold enough to sacrifice a few of their men for a greater prize.

He shuddered reflexively at thinking of himself as a prize.

Alex wasn't as naïve to believe that the only big player he should be concerned about was Scorpia, but it was true that they had a personal grudge with him. Alternately, perhaps the man was from another terrorist group? It was also possible the man could be an agent from another country's secret service or was acting independently. There were far too many options for Alex to narrow down his identity, and he wasn't about to do something stupid like assume he knew who his captor was and act rashly. Alex had seen far too many men go down as a result of such assumptions.

They stopped, apparently at random, although he didn't rule out the thought that this spot held a particular significance. Alex scanned the area, but he didn't see anybody - or anything. Then again, the trees were dense and full with leaves, and the sky was still shadowed with night clouds. He would have to stay vigilant in case of an ambush. The man behind him hesitated before removing the gun. A rough hand on Alex's shoulder forced him to turn around, and he finally got a good look at his abductor, who immediately pointed the gun at Alex again.

It took considerable self-control to stop his eyes from widening in shock. The man was honestly no more than a kid, only a few years older than Alex himself. His tanned face still had a hint of boyish roundness and he didn't quite look as though he was finished growing. However, Alex knew more than anybody that age did not belie experience, and upon further examination, it became very clear that this man - or boy, or teenager, or whatever he should be called - was dangerous indeed.

He held himself with a self-possessed air that would appear arrogant if his face had not been as hard as steel. Looking at the man's face, Alex was uncomfortably reminded of what he'd seen in his own countenance after he'd left Scorpia. The man held his gun with a looseness that spoke of familiarity with the weapon, and the way he had positioned his weight informed Alex that he could strike out lethally at any moment. The man's hazel eyes were tracking Alex as intently as Alex was cataloguing him, and he briefly wondered what assumptions the man was making in their silent assessment of each other. Alex's own face was impassive, but even the most experienced spy couldn't hide everything.

Whatever the man saw seemed to please him, for his face broke out into a wide smile that was entirely unexpected. The man had curly brown hair and a stocky build and he looked shockingly similar to a boy that Alex had spent years playing with on the same football team. It was strange to see him smile, Alex thought, as his affable appearance contradicted harshly with the cold glint in his eyes.

"Hello," the man said, and his voice cemented Alex's earlier prediction that he could be no more than mid-twenties. His voice had not yet matured to the deepness expected of somebody older. "Sorry about all of that."

Alex raised an eyebrow ever-so-slightly and made a split second decision on how to react. "It's okay," he said just as easily, figuring that cordiality was his best bet until he figured out more about this stranger. There was no apparent hurry, after all. Alex was reasonably sure all of the Scorpia men had been taking care of, judging by the fact that there were no more gunshots, and MI6 must have arrived by now.

Alex thought suddenly of L-Unit and he amended his earlier statement. Their statuses were still uncertain, as the last he'd seen, they were all down and possibly dead. There was a reason to hurry after all, and his desire to return warred with his desire to figure out more about this man.

_If I see an opportunity, I'll take it_, Alex decided, _and not a moment before._ "Mind if I ask who you are?" He continued, his tone light.

The man quirked his lips. "You're taking this awfully calmly."

Alex shrugged, his eyes picking up on the way that the man subtly shifted his hand towards his gun. The man expected him to make a move, then. "You haven't given me a reason to distrust you yet."

The man raised an eyebrow, and the touch of playfulness in his behavior instantly disappeared. "We both know neither of us are going to trust the other," he stated matter-of-factly, and Alex couldn't help but agree. "But, I need your help."

"It must be hard to form an alliance without trusting the other person," was Alex's only response, said almost automatically as he readjusted to this new information. "What kind of help?"

"You don't need to know that yet," the man said. "After all, you wouldn't believe me. That is not the important detail, however."

Alex narrowed his eyes. This encounter wasn't going at all like he'd anticipated, and it was difficult to think of a good strategy to continue. He decided to be blunt, hoping it would throw the other man off his guard. "I think it's pretty bloody important, actually," Alex said lightly, though he tried to convey his seriousness through his crossed arms and unforgiving stance.

"Scorpia wants you," the man said instead of elaborating. Alex held back a frown as he took in this information. Was this a trap, or some kind of trick? "That should be obvious by now. They have retreated; this was a first strike, and their main objective failed. They will be watching cautiously."

He ignored this piece of information, unsure of its veracity, and instead asked, "Who are you?"

The man ignored him. "They have sustained far more losses than you have, although there are a few deaths I suspect you will find quite distressing."

This effectively caught Alex's attention, and he took a step forward. The man's gun didn't waver. "Who died?" Alex demanded, suddenly wary. He had left Tom and the others alone. He had told them to run, but had they listened?

"The man you call Frog," he said emotionlessly, "And the medic."

Alex blinked rapidly as he took in this news. Almost immediately, the grief hit. He hadn't known either of the two men for very long, but they had known his secret, and he had confessed everything to them...

_Control_, a voice whispered in his head, and he swallowed harshly as he banished all sadness to the part of his mind where dangerous emotions lingered and hid. Anger replaced the sorrow and he noticed distantly that the man looked apprehensive of him for the first time. "What happened." It was a demand more than a question, his intonation leaving no room for argument.

"Every Scorpia agent carries at least two types of bullets," the man said instead. "You know this."

"Ones that kill, and ones that don't," Alex completed. He knew this quite well, though he distantly wondered at the level of intimate knowledge the man was showing. Scorpia killed mercilessly, but they knew the value of keeping somebody alive. From the man's information, he inferred that Pelican and Jackal had been spared - most likely for a purpose, although he couldn't yet think of what that may be. "Why were they killed?"

"Scorpia wants you," the man repeated, and his eyes held Alex's gaze intently. "They want you to come after them."

Alex distrusted the man, but he knew this, at least, was true. Scorpia had made their desire towards him very clear. He forced his voice to be calm and smoothly lied, "I wouldn't risk my life for revenge."

"I'm sure they suspected that," the man said. "The deaths were only a backup plan."

Alex's voice was deathly cold when he whispered, "What did they do?"

"They took your friends."

_Tom!_

He immediately began planning. Scorpia wanted him, that was true. How could he get his friends back? MI6 would help - they would have to, he would quit if they didn't, he would go after them alone - and the SAS would be obliged, for letting Tom get captured in their protection.

_Control_, that insidious voice whispered again, but he batted it away. He needed to rescue Tom, it was his fault that he'd gotten captured -

"Already plotting, I see?" The man said, almost disappointed, and it was enough to snap Alex momentarily out of his rescue plans. "Do not be foolish, Alex Rider."

At a loss for something to say, he managed again, "Who are you?"

The man cocked an eyebrow and continued. "Your plans will fail, almost certainly." Something changed in his expression and voice as he said, "Did you wonder why MI6 has not arrived?"

He had been wondering this, but he shook his head fiercely. "Do not try to turn me against them - "

"They are using you as bait!" The man said loudly, and it seemed as if he'd lost a bit of his control, his eyes flashing and his expression angry. "They ignored your signal for distress. They are tracking you as we speak, but they will not interfere, not until you have led them right to the new Scorpia headquarters!"

"No," he whispered in disbelief and dismay, but as the man was talking, pieces began falling in place. They had ignored him, forbidden the Sergeant from training him, left him with no instruction or guidance. He thought of his experiences with them in the past. They had manipulated him into coming here… was it too much of a stretch to think they would sacrifice his safety to get at Scorpia?

"No," Alex whispered again, but this time it was in answer to his unspoken question.

The man was back to his cold expression. "I am not suggesting you distance yourself from them. They can be useful. Let them manipulate you, but be aware of their manipulations, Alex Rider. They do not care for you beyond your use to them as a tool, as a weapon. Do not be blind."

"I don't believe you," he lied, for despite all of his brain screaming at him to get away, some inner part of him agreed with everything the man was saying.

The man gave him the smallest of disbelieving smiles and continued, "SAS is on your side. They are on the verge of breaking from MI6. You can trust the Sergeant."

"How - how do you know all of this?" Alex asked weakly. The _how can I trust you_ was left unsaid, but they both heard it.

The man smiled grimly. "I have been watching you for days - weeks even, Alex Rider. I need your help, and you need mine to break away from these chains. It's all about mutual benefit; it's not about trust, or lack thereof. I have told you nothing but the truth. Go, confirm it. You wish to rescue your friends and avenge the others' deaths. I have another wish that I will reveal to you in two days, at midnight, where you train with L-Unit."

"I don't trust you," Alex said, one final denial, but the man only shrugged.

"I do not trust you either, Alex Rider, but that's hardly important in such a dangerous game. I apologize. You will wake up in fifteen minutes."

The meaning of the last statement made him furrow his brow before he launched himself to the side. It was not enough to escape the dart shot at him, and he crumpled, unconscious.

* * *

><p>The spy smiled to himself as he hurried away. That had gone well, better than expected. He was sure that when Rider woke up, he would go through the conversation very carefully. Good. He had kept the boy on his toes, not letting him dwell too long on his disbelief or distrust, and Rider nearly believed him already.<p>

Running lithely through the forest, the spy made his next move. He had told nothing but the truth to Rider, and the sooner he realized that, the better. The spy hated slavery, and he hated to see talent such as Rider held down and constrained in dangerous chains. He would free Rider, just as he had been freed, and then they would take down the cause of all of their troubles and rise from the ashes, stronger than before.

* * *

><p>Paul was drafting the beginning of the report on the night's fiasco that he knew he'd have to send to MI6 when Alex Rider slammed his way through the doors. "Where the hell were you?" Alex yelled, and Paul winced at the grief he could hear colouring the tone. "Why the <em>fuck<em> did they die?"

Paul looked up and would have recoiled if he wasn't so adept at hiding his emotions. Alex looked terrible, with dirt smudging his body and scratches littering his arms and legs and bruises on his face. He was covered with leaves and muck and blood, his blond hair a dirty brown, and he looked absolutely feral. Paul had seen a lesser version of this look on Pelican and Jackal's faces, and while he didn't doubt his men were grieving more than Alex, they also had the tools necessary to think past the cloud of emotions weighing heavily on their minds. When his men got angry, it was a cold anger that promised silent retribution in the most precise, exacting way possible. His men were trained not to take stupid risks. They acknowledged their anger or sadness or happiness and then used them as tools. Rider, on the other hand, had allowed himself to get entirely swept up in his rage and was practically emanating fury.

Quite honestly, Paul had never been more aware that Alex was dangerous until this moment.

He shook his head, then, and affixed a terribly strict glare onto his face. "Sit _down_, Cub," he snapped, letting all the authority of Sergeant strengthen his voice. He had a soft spot for this teenager, as soft as a military leader could afford to have, but he also knew Alex had the capabilities to think, act, and fight like an adult. From this day on, he would cease to treat him as a child and expect him to behave as such.

Alex sat, part of the anger knocked out of him in surprise.

"Tell me exactly what happened," Paul continued, still in that hard voice that he used when his men came back from difficult, traumatizing missions. He forced them to speak about it with the psychologists and psychiatrists he employed, but he would never molly-coddle them during the debriefing. He believed that it gave them strength, to know that they had survived something terrible and still could sit in front of their Sergeant and give a concise report on what happened. They always had their training and skills to fall back on, if nothing else.

Alex opened his mouth, and the story he told was enough to make even Paul clench one fist in anger. He was not upset at Alex, or even at the SAS men. They had fought bravely. No, he was _furious_ at MI6, who had mandated the camping trip and then promised to watch everybody and ensure their safety. He had just received a worrisome memo, and although he understood the situation, how had they been so careless?

Now, two of his men were dead, and if Alex was to be believed, seven children had been kidnapped by a terrorist organization. What the hell was he supposed to do?

"And then the man knocked me out, and when I woke back up, he was gone," Alex concluded, and Paul was pleased to note that the feral look in his eyes had dissipated almost entirely. "I ran back to camp as fast as I could and went straight to your office, sir."

The 'sir' at the end made him nod to himself. Alex would do nicely. "Let us make a list of what this man told you," he said, taking out a pad of lined paper and a pen. "He said that Frog and Mongoose were dead, that your unit mates had been captured, that Jackal and Pelican were alive because they had been shot with sleeping darts, not bullets, correct? He also stated that MI6 was manipulating you and wanted you to be captured so that they could follow you back to Scorpia's headquarters."

"Yes," Alex said, and then he looked up to Paul with just a hint of vulnerability showing. "Is it all true?"

Paul bit his tongue, deliberating, before he nodded sharply. "I cannot say for certain whether the accusations about MI6 are true," he said truthfully, "I received a memo stating that there had been a Scorpia mole in MI6, and that was the reason their team was not in the forest to protect you. They have apprehended this mole and are interrogating him as we speak."

Alex's face turned ugly in disgust. "What do we do now, sir?"

He frowned, deliberating. "We do nothing," he said. He was upset at MI6, yes, but Blunt had assured them that they would be up and running in a few hours, their security intact once more. "MI6 has found the mole and stopped them. It is their responsibility to track down Scorpia and find those kids."

Alex looked completely taken aback. "You can't be serious!" He exclaimed. "MI6 isn't trustworthy! How do we know there wasn't another spy? What if they _were_ trying to set me up, use me as bait - "

"There is absolutely no evidence that this man was correct," Paul snapped before he visibly calmed himself. Leaning back in his chair, the Sergeant surveyed Alex: stubbornly clenched jaw, dark eyes, tensed shoulders. "That man is an unknown factor and a risk," Paul said carefully. "I forbid you to contact him tomorrow, and I forbid you to go after Scorpia by yourself, understand?"

Alex's face was mutinous, but he muttered an agreement. "Yes, sir."

Paul nodded decisively. The entire operation had been a complete disaster, but during their talk, he had charted out a brief plan of action. "This is what we're going to do," he said, and Alex looked up in surprise. Paul hid a smile. Alex greatly desired to be involved, but he never expected to be. "As is customary, Pelican and Jackal are going to be given a short break for grieving purposes. You are, as well. You've been through a lot. I suggest you go talk to MI6 and see what they have to say, and then spend some time with your guardian."

That mulish look was back in Alex's frown, yet he didn't say anything.

"I will be working on increasing the security of the camp. Blunt ordered me to keep your classmates here for another few weeks; a few MI6 agents will be coming as well. MI6 is capable of planning a rescue mission."

"You want me to go home."

Paul looked him directly in the eye. "_Yes_," he said, feeling some of that old disgust at Alex's occupation well up in him. He was talented and competent, yes, but he was still a child. "Go home. Rest. You've done enough for now."

Alex was definitely angry by this point, but he bowed his head and murmured another submissive agreement.

"Good," Paul said seriously. "Dismissed."

* * *

><p>Tom opened an eye, feeling woozy and tired. He groaned softly, his stomach churning as he became aware that he was bouncing up and down. More details crept in as he tried to clear his head. He was tied up, head lolling on Colin's shoulder. They were in a van of some sort, along with the other five. The others were stirring, too, and the girl that Alex disdainfully referred to as Mud Girl - her name was Amelia - opened her eyes first.<p>

"Where are we?" Amelia shrieked, and her voice was high pitched enough to make Tom wince. He had a shit storm of a headache, and he glared weakly at her.

"Shut up," Jeremy snapped. _No surprise there,_ Tom thought drowsily. Jeremy was a brat no matter the circumstances.

He blinked a few more times and properly sat up. The seven teenagers spent the next few minutes in silence as they adjusted to their surroundings. Tom had never been properly drugged, unless you counted the time he'd been half-paralyzed at the hospital, and he decided he never wanted to be again. If that wasn't an incentive to stay away from the shady blokes who hung out near the bike cages, nothing was.

He amused himself for a second by imagining an anti-drug campaign that involved dosing all the students before he shook his head again. _What is wrong with me?_ His thoughts were floating and random and he had trouble focusing on the important bits: they had been captured.

He started, the memories of the past few hours flooding in. "Holy shit," he muttered to himself as he remembered the men shooting at him, Alex killing, and their capture. "Holy fucking shit."

"We're going to die," whispered one of the other girls, and it took him a minute to place her name: Miranda.

He wanted to agree with her, but then he thought that Alex had been brave even when it meant destroying his secret identity, and he shook his head. "No, we're not," he said, trying to make his voice soothing. He had to be the brave one. He was the only one who knew about the situation, about Scorpia and Alex. "If they wanted to kill us, we'd be dead already."

This didn't really help calm anyone down, he realized too late, as Amelia shrieked again and Jeremy shouted at her and they deteriorated into chaos for a few minutes.

"Shut the hell up!" A voice shouted from the front of the van, and they instantly quieted.

"Who are those people?" Brooke whispered, her voice scratchy. She clutched hard on the hand of the girl next to her. Dammit, what was her name? Jenny? No. Julia?

All eyes swung to him, and he mentally swore. Maybe he didn't want to be the brave one after all. That wasn't really his thing - but he didn't have a choice, and so he lowered his voice and leaned forward as much as the bonds would allow him. "They're a group of terrorists," he said truthfully, and the color immediately drained from everybody's faces. "They're not going to hurt us because we're just kids."

"Terrorists don't care if we're kids," Jeremy said softly.

Tom hated the bloody idiot, but he looked terrified, and so Tom only shook his head. "No, they won't, because if they hurt us, SAS and MI6 and Alex will hurt them."

Perhaps mentioning MI6 and Alex had been a bad idea, Tom realized a beat late as they exploded into a flurry of whispers again.

"What - what does Alex have to do with it?" Colin said, speaking up for the first time. "Is he really involved in a gang?"

Tom was about to say 'no' when he stopped, realizing that he could help keep Alex's true identity secret. "Yeah," Tom said mournfully, putting all of his acting talents to use. "I told you that earlier, in the forest, remember? It's not his fault, but I think he did something stupid that made the terrorists pay attention to him. I think the gang he was in was dealing with something, drugs or guns or some shit, and Alex got involved."

"So we're here because he was an idiot?" Jeremy raged, and Tom wanted to hit the smarmy look right off of his face.

"Does it matter? He's going to come rescue us. He saved our lives."

Whatever Jeremy was going to say died unspoken as the voice yelled at them to shut up again. Tom quieted. They had to figure out what to do, and soon.

* * *

><p>The three of them sat in silence in L-Unit's old hut.<p>

It was a disaster. Cards were scattered about. Beer bottles were smashed, the glass littering the floor. There were candy wrappers everywhere, the beds had been overturned, and a sticky residue from a lotion bottle stained one wall from where Pelican had hurled it.

The three of them sat on the floor, leaning against the walls. It was a disaster, yes, but they all felt the better for it after.

Alex stared at the glinting remains of a mirror that Jackal had managed to smash in his rage. He briefly saw his face wink in and out and turned his attention away, not wanting to see his suspiciously red eyes and the bags under them from lack of sleep.

His companions were no better. Jackal's face seemed made up entirely of lines, with his eyebrows pulled together in worry and sadness and his lips pursed, pulling his cheeks. Pelican was the opposite, in that regard. His face was smooth and expressionless, and he stared blankly ahead of him.

"The Sergeant's going to flip a bitch when he sees this," Jackal said quietly, and if his voice was hoarse, nobody mentioned it.

Pelican closed his eyes in agreement. "He'll tell us that we should get over it."

Alex kept silent. It wasn't the same for him. He'd lost friends, but they'd lost two men who were practically their brothers. Alex briefly remembered losing Ian and shuddered. As complicated as his feelings were for his uncle, his death had been harsh.

"I've - I've never lost anybody like that," confessed Jackal vulnerably.

Alex almost expected Pelican to make a snappy comment, but the normally sarcastic man was entirely sincere in his reply. "Me neither."

Of course, that wasn't entirely true. Alex knew that both men surely had seen comrades die more frequently than he would want to imagine. He himself had seen plenty of people die, and some of their deaths had hurt more than others. A unit member was different, though, and Alex knew that L-Unit had been together for _years_. It was the first time the two men would have to deal with losing not one, but two of their own.

There was silence again.

Jackal broke it. "We're going with you.

Alex looked up. "What?"

"We're going with you," Pelican said, and his lips twisted in a harsh imitation of a smile. "After Scorpia."

"I'm not going anywhere," he protested weakly. "At least, I haven't decided anything yet. The man could be a spy - "

"Fuck him," Jackal said, his voice a terrible, deadened thing. "If he wants to help, let him help. If he tries anything, he'll be dead."

"He was right, too," Pelican said in the same tone. "About MI6. About your friends. About - "

Alex hastily nodded. "The Sergeant," he began a futile argument.

"Goddammit, Alex!" Jackal was up and pacing, fist clenched. "They're going to pay. You said they didn't have to kill anybody, so why the fuck did they kill _them_?"

He didn't have an answer, and to be honest, he didn't want one. He had already decided to listen to the man and see what he had to say, and he sure as hell was planning on rescue Tom. With Jackal and Pelican, he wouldn't have to worry about getting betrayed in his sleep. They could take turns keeping guard, protect each other.

Was it the right thing to do?

Alex looked at the two men and hesitated. He didn't want anybody else to die, but he couldn't argue against the desire to see Scorpia taken down. At the very least, he wanted them to know that if they hit him, he'd hit back. Who did he have to hit for him now, anyway? MI6 was content to let him be bait. He could have died, and they wouldn't have done a bloody thing. The Sergeant, well, he seemed to be an ally but Alex couldn't expect his help as soon as he left the SAS camp. He was by himself now, a position he didn't find entirely unappealing.

He nodded. "We'll plan something," he said quietly. "We'll get them back."

It might not be the right thing to do, but who gave a damn?

* * *

><p>Harrison was bloody tired, but more than that, he was frightened.<p>

Where was everybody? He had been peacefully sleeping in a tent with his unit-mates, when he'd been roughly shaken by Turtle, one of the unit leaders. The man had hissed for him to get up and stay silent before disappearing, presumably into the girls' tent. He'd watched in sleepy-eyed bewilderment as the SAS men swiftly packed up, clearing all evidence that they had ever set camp, and Harrison had stumbled along after them with the rest of his classmates as the men lead them efficiently through the forest.

He would have thought it was a training exercise, but he had heard gunshots. _Gunshots_. Harrison considered himself fairly observant, and he'd definitely seen Turtle tighten his grip on his gun. Now, Colin and his unit were missing and they had been sent to bed like _children_.

It was morning, now, but even the bright sun didn't erase his fear. He sat in the mess hall with the other children and poked at his scrambled eggs without any desire to eat. The chatter was subdued, as they weren't quite sure whether what had happened last night. Harrison didn't speak much. He sat in a corner with his football buddies, who were hotly debating what had happened, and hoped desperately it _had_ been a training exercise and Colin was safe.

A movement came from the entrance, and he turned in his seat to see the Sergeant. "Silence, you lot," the beefy man yelled, and a hush settled. "I'm sure you're worried about what happened last night," the Sergeant continued before saying something Harrison didn't expect: "Congratulations."

He blinked.

"You've survived your first dangerous situation module," the Sergeant said loudly over the excited murmurings that sprang from the kids. "We wanted to see which units could evacuate the fastest. The slowest unit had been 'abducted' and is awaiting the next stage of the operation."

Harrison closed his eyes in relief. It had all been a drill. Around him, his friends were exclaiming that Colin was lucky and was having an adventure, and even Harrison allowed himself to smile.

The Sergeant raised his voice. "Don't think this is over! Over the next week, you will have to keep your wits about you! Nowhere is safe. Your unit may be running laps when you will be forced to flee, or you might be eating breakfast. Stay with your unit and be smart. May the best unit win." He stared intimidatingly over everybody before sharply turning and striding away.

Chaos exploded as everybody began talking at once, claiming how _their_ unit was the best and was going to win. Harrison cheered up and joined in the talk, proudly boasting with the rest of them, though a small part of him kept worrying about his friend.

* * *

><p>Alan Blunt pursed his lips thoughtfully and checked the date.<p>

Despite yesterday's setback, everything should be going according to plan. He smiled; he was much anticipating the next step of the operation.

Check.

* * *

><p>Alex lay on his stomach amidst a flurry of maps, reports and other various papers, chewing thoughtfully on a stick of beef jerky and flipping a pen around his thumb.<p>

To his left, Pelican was engrossed in a thick file he'd managed to steal from the Sergeant concerning Scorpia. He seemed entirely unconcerned that he had just exploited a potential security risk, and Alex didn't think it was appropriate to push him further. He'd figure out a way to tell the Sergeant later.

Jackal was still red-eyed and liable to snap at any moment, but he'd managed to pull himself together long enough to begin a list of supplies and how they would obtain them. The three of them were operating under the assumption that they would not be receiving any help. The Sergeant had made it clear that Alex was not to go after Scorpia.

Alex had a few doubts about their rescue mission, but at the same time he did not feel as if he could trust MI6 again. That was why the three of them had spent the last day and a half holed up in L-Unit's cabin, which they had spent a good two hours cleaning before the Sergeant had come to check on them. Jackal had nearly broken down in tears before the Sergeant, claiming he needed 'closure,' and the man had backed off instantly and allowed them to stay inside the hut. Alex wasn't sure whether Jackal had been acting, but it sure had worked. They'd been left undisturbed.

Pelican looked up from his file. "They don't have anything on the whereabouts of the Scorpia headquarters," he said in frustration. "They have past locations, and I suppose we could try to derive some sort of pattern, but we don't have the time or skills."

The other two looked up. Alex bit his lip. He knew that Scorpia frequently switched locations and had decoy headquarters to throw their opponents off, and that it would be nearly impossible to find them on their own. "We could meet with that man," he suggested. They hadn't fully discussed this yet, and he wasn't sure what the other two would think. Hell, he didn't know what he thought of the mysterious man.

"It's too risky," Jackal said at once. "We don't know anything about him."

"He's meeting us here," Pelican said thoughtfully. "On our home front. And you have an advantage; he doesn't know we'll be coming."

Jackal shook his head. "He seems to know an awful lot already," he pointed out. "By letting him pick the location, he could have plenty of time to lay a trap."

"I technically can't go," Alex interjected, remembering the Sergeant's command. "I'm forbidden to contact him, but you two aren't. You could go without me."

They turned to him. "We're already going against his orders," Pelican said in exasperation. "One more can't hurt."

"The way he worded it, though," Alex said thoughtfully. "He forbade me to contact the man and go after Scorpia _by myself_."

The three of them pondered the implications of that.

"Do you think," Jackal began, hesitating. "Do you think he wants us to go?"

Despite himself, a smile appeared at the corner of Alex's mouth. He'd thought the Sergeant was on his side, and to hear him abruptly dismiss him back home had stung. Perhaps this was the Sergeant's unofficial way of condoning their little trip. He wasn't stupid, after all. He would have to know that Pelican and Jackal would want to seek out Scorpia as well, yet he hadn't forbidden them to do anything. "He's even forcing us home for a few weeks," Alex said. "Awfully convenient, huh?"

"It's standard," Jackal said absently. "We call it 'leave to grieve.' You have a point, though."

Pelican shrugged and flipped another page in the file. "You want to stay here, then?"

"I don't _want _to," Alex protested. "I just think it'll be a better idea. If you take some sort of way to contact me, I can be backup in case things go wrong."

It was true. He did desperately want to go, but logically, it would be smarter to have somebody behind, and to acquiesce with the Sergeant's command. That way they could legitimately claim they didn't disobey any orders.

Pelican ran his tongue along his teeth before nodding. "We'll meet him," he said, "And then we'll all go home for leave. You visit MI6 and see if there's any truth to what the man said, and we'll ask around for information and get supplies."

"That could work," Jackal said slowly. His mouth twisted into a cruel grin. "Scorpia won't know what hit them."

* * *

><p>The spy was not entirely unsurprised to see two figures walk towards their chosen meeting space. He was glad that Alex wasn't stupid or reckless enough to meet an unknown ally or enemy in a pre-determined location without backup. However, as the two drew closer, he realized with a shock that Alex was not there at all.<p>

Why?

Had they detained him? Was he in the hospital due to an injury? Had he decided not to take the bait? Had MI6 fed him more lies, or had they swiftly secreted him away?

The spy narrowed his eyes. If anybody had put a finger on _his_ tool, they would die. Alex was his. He'd put in all the effort to rescue the boy from the web of lies he was caught in. He deserved the pay-off.

"Identify yourselves," the spy called out as the two walked closer. It was definitely the two unit members that had been left alive, but he was curious to see whether they would lie to him.

"We're allied with the person you wanted to meet," the broader one replied after a moment's hesitation. That was Jackal, if he was recalling them correctly.

The spy nodded approvingly. He wouldn't want to meet them if they were daft enough to reveal their names. He jumped down from his perch on the roof, rolling lithely to absorb the impact of the fall, and got to his feet.

There were two guns pointing at him.

"Relax," the spy said amusedly. "I was simply coming to meet you. It's safer to meet inside."

"I don't think so," the skinny one, Pelican, said. He held his gun steady. "We're not going to meet in a space you chose, and if my suspicions are correct, I doubt you would want to work with somebody who would go inside that warehouse."

He smiled delightedly. Brilliant. Not only did the two men reveal that they were aligned with Alex, they also professed a desire to work with him. Naturally, the spy didn't trust them. He didn't trust Alex either, come to think of it, but he was confident enough in his abilities to follow them to a new location. He was stronger, faster, more lethal than both of them - three, including Alex - combined.

He had been trained for this type of thing, after all. For a brief second, he allowed a triumphant grin to cross his face. To think, the skills they had provided him would be used to remove them from the world; he found it fitting.

He followed the two men to another similar warehouse, where he was prodded to enter in front of Jackal. The large building was dusty and housed a few tables and chairs, covered with large tarps. Once they were all inside, he found himself facing two guns. "Talk," Pelican ordered. "Quickly, we don't have much time."

_Curious_. The spy began the speech he had prepared for Alex, tweaking it slightly to fit two soldiers instead of one boy. "You know who I originally invited," he referenced Alex and the two nodded. "I've had my eye on him for a while."

"Why?"

The spy smiled unpleasantly. "We have mutual interests."

Jackal shifted forward. "Explain."

"I was like him, you know," the spy said conversationally. "A tool."

Pelican's lips quirked slightly. "And I suppose you got tired of this," he said, his voice mildly sarcastic, "and want to take down the people that enslaved you. Let me guess: Scorpia."

The spy inhaled sharply and glared for half a second before he caught himself and shrugged noncommittally. How dare that man dismiss his concerns, his motivations, as if they were nothing? The spy seethed with rage. Scorpia had trapped him, and he had hated it, and now they were going to be destroyed for daring to contain him. Pelican raised a cool eyebrow and the spy forcibly resisted the urge to dispose of him with a well-placed bullet. "Astute," the spy managed instead, forcing his emotions away. "I see why Alex likes you."

"Let's say we believe you," Jackal interceded bluntly. "Why should we help you?"

"You outnumber me," the spy pointed out, regaining some of his former control. "You don't trust me, so I couldn't easily lead you into a trap. I've told you nothing but the truth so far, and Alex will find that out one day."

Pelican was still watching him with strangely perceptive eyes. The spy wanted to fidget, an urge that was foreign to him. He felt uncomfortable under Pelican's derisive stare. "You don't think we need to trust each other to work together, do you," he commented lightly before nodding once. "Agreed."

Jackal shot a single bewildered look at Pelican, who countered it with a look that the spy could not decipher. Visibly backing down, Jackal turned to the spy and nodded his agreement. He clearly didn't understand why Pelican had decided to help the spy, but for whatever reason, he deferred to Pelican. _Interesting_.

* * *

><p>Pelican watched the spy with a calculating gaze as they hashed out the details. He wouldn't be able to explain why he had agreed to this plan if not for one thing: he recognized the man.<p>

Unbidden, a smile curled his lips. _Interesting indeed._


End file.
